On December 18, a new exhibition space of the "Bread and Roses" project was opened inside the offices of the Ma'an organization. Bread and Roses Gallery will be educating with a solo exhibition by Maysa Daher, a young artist born in Nazareth, a graduate of the Department of Art at the University of Haifa (2014). The "Open Eye" exhibition will feature works that Daher has created in recent years - paintings on canvas and new video work. This will be her first solo exhibition in Tel Aviv-Yafo, five years after she presented her first solo exhibition at the cooperative gallery at Kibbutz Kabri. Daher has participated in the last two "Bread and Roses" exhibitions, and this exhibition creates an opportunity to experience a wider share of her unique, evolving work.

The exhibition focuses on the way in which the artist creates new worlds from particles of existing reality. Its starting point can be likened to the world of a child, the creator in his imagination creatures and characters. However, Dahr continues this mental flexibility into the adult reality, from which she also borrows various elements, from different times and places, to create a unique space in which new connections and relationships are forged. Daher?s artistic action is saturated with humor and irony and at the same time she confronts weighty social issues like gender issues and her position as a daughter of an ethnic and national minority, alongside questions related to the history of painting and its relevance in the present.

Daher's paintings are spaces full of signs from different symbol languages - from popular culture motifs such as decorations, sweets and characters from animated films, through well-known iconographic representations from Palestinian painting, to images from social media - selfies, search engine images and emoji symbols. The paintings are full of organs - hands, eyes, feet - and birds - crows, songbirds and the Palestinian sunbird (which has been transformed into a "shining scout"). Among all these stand out the multiple images of the eye: eyes that look but do not see, that represent the present sight, the peering gaze, the guarding gaze and also the protective symbol, having mystical powers. All of these meanings are found in Daher's paintings, which, while personal and intimate, also consciously deal with the cultural patterns of the "personal" and the "intimate" - on their physical, sexual, gender and family faces. As the artist describes it, "there are paintings in the exhibition that are a world, and there are paintings that know they are a painting."

About Bread and Roses Gallery
The Ma'an Workers' Organization (AR) and the Cindianat Hagalil Association have been holding "Bread and Roses" for 14 years - an annual exhibition selling works of art whose proceeds are dedicated to the "Women, Work and Sustainability" project. Hundreds of artists, Jews and Arabs, including young and many artists The first of the art world in Israel, contributed over the years to the exhibition, thus helping to integrate thousands of uneducated Arab women at work.The exhibition was postponed slightly this year due to the circumstances, and is scheduled to take place around Women's Day, between March 3-6.
Over the years, a community of about 400 male and female artists has been formed around "Bread and Roses", as well as a large collection of works of art that to date have been displayed only once a year. We recently decided to establish a gallery space in the association's offices, on Aliya Street in Tel Aviv, which will expand the "Bread and Roses" project throughout the year. The space is intended for presenting rotating exhibitions of artists from the large community of "Bread and Roses" in a way that will allow the unveiling of new exhibitions and projects in the space located in the active art area of South Tel Aviv-Yafo. The Bread and Roses Gallery has set regular opening hours for the general public and its location on the floor of the association's offices is aimed at preserving the context of the "Bread and Roses" project as a project of continuous social action, linking art and work closely and organically.

רחוב העלייה 45, תל אביב (במשרדי ארגון העובדים מען) שעות פתיחה: שלישי 16:00-20:00, שישי ושבת 11:00-15:00