Casper Hall

Portraiture was an important part of Palestinian culture in the first half of the 20^th Century, middle and upper class families commissioned portraits of their families both in photography and painting. Today there is very little demand for portrait painting as this tradition and its value has almost disappeared. During the Intifada some artists created portraits of martyrs however today the field is dominated by photography in which there are many  photographic studios, where portraits are taken.

Casper Hall’s project brings portraiture back into the contemporary field in everyday spaces of the shop keepers and merchants in Hebron. In order to undertake portraits a certain relation is built between the artist and the subject and this distinguishes the  way in which his residency has been rooted in the local community and a collaborative project of working with people and representation. In the act of working with the shopkeepers he creates opportunity for collaboration and interaction between himself and the individuals, who also choose where to hang their image, of how they see themselves. It is interesting to explore the aesthetics of how and where they have decided to place the artists portrait.

 In shops in Palestine it is the tradition to hang the portrait of the father or grandfather who previously ran or owned the store, this serves a reminder of the passage of time, family lines and the authority of the father.  Casper Hall transforms this tradition, by representing the present, projecting to the future, and by re-instating  painting into the tradition of the portrait of the shop keeper. The approach of using monochrome, also serves to unify the representations in the multiple spaces of the suq and allows one to focus on the character of each Khalili in his domain of the marketplace while  mapping representations  across the space of the suq.

Tina Sherwell
2008