The Lover's Tree

Considered a pioneer of Jordanian art and a trailblazing female Arab Sculptor, Mona Saudi was born in 1945 in Amman

Following her time spent in the refugee camps, Saudi created more work related to the Palestinian cause in the following years

She undertook a project dedicated to her close friend, the Palestinian writer and poet Mahmoud Darwish, creating silkscreen prints inspired by and incorporating his poetry.

In her homage to Darwish, she created large prints combining Darwish’s words written by Saudi’s hands, and drawings clearly relating to her natural and figural sculptural forms. 

The Lover’s Tree – was inspired by Darwish’s long and moving poem he penned after his friend, the poet Rashid Hussein, took his own life. Saudi read the poem and drew a figurative image of two people embracing.    

Flanked above and below by rocks and a crescent form, Saudi sees this image as representing a love between human and land, an intimate relationship.

Saudi later gifted this print to Darwish directly.