A love letter to Gaza • The Yellow Springs News

Local muralist Pierre Nagley is at it again – this time behind the Millworks Business Center.

Over the past sweltering week, the artist has been putting the first strokes on a new mural dedicated to the victims of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, which, at the time of writing, has claimed some 186,000 lives in the Gaza Strip and displaced over 75 percent of the Palestinians living there, plunging them into a nightmarish humanitarian crisis.

On Nagley’s canvas, a background is dappled with soft periwinkle and sunset gold tones. Against this dusky sky are shoots of faqqua irises – the national flower of Palestine, which produces only a single bloom and dies standing upright. The foreground is more abstract. Geometric shapes in patchwork earth tones can look like graves, buildings, rubble, or even people – Nagley leaves it up to interpretation.

Nagley’s mural will soon feature Palestinian sunbirds – a symbol of freedom, he said – and a tangled knot that hands struggle to unravel. This Gordian metaphor will represent the terrible complexities associated with ongoing war. These images will float above the irises and eventually become the focal point of the mural.

Nagley said he has about two weeks left to write his sprawling love letter to Gaza. During that time, the artist is encouraging villagers and passersby to stop and say hello – to talk to him about the art and its message. Nagley’s canvas is right on the bike path, just a minute’s walk behind the outdoor patio of the YS Brewery. He said he is there painting almost every day, from 1:30 p.m. until sunset.

Materials and paint for Nagley’s mural were made possible by a donation from the Yellow Springs Community Foundation.