Jordan Nassar Fantasy and Truth, 2022-2023, Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Installation view
About
Jordan Nassar’s hand embroidered textile pieces address an intersecting field of language, ethnicity and the embedded
notions of heritage and homeland. Treating craft within its capacity as communicative form, Nassar examines conflicting
issues of identity and cultural participation using geometric patterning adapted from Islamic symbols present in
traditional Palestinian hand embroidery. Nassar generates these symbols via computer and then meticulously hand stitches
them onto carefully mapped-out patterns. In the enmeshing and encoding of these symbols within his work, Nassar roots
his practice in a linguistic and geopolitical field of play characterized by both conflict and unspoken harmony.
Jordan Nassar (b. 1985, New York, NY) earned his BA at Middlebury College in 2007. His work has been featured in
solo and group exhibitions globally at institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Asia
Society, New York, NY; Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ; Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY; Katonah
Museum of Art, Katonah, NY; KMAC Museum, Louisville, KY; Center for Contemporary Art (CCA) Tel Aviv; Anat Ebgi, Los
Angeles, CA; James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY; and The Third Line, Dubai, UAE. His work has been acquired by museum
collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Rollins
Museum of Art, Florida; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; The Museum of Contemporary Art, California;
and Rhode Island School of Design Museum, in Rhode Island, among others. Jordan Nassar is the recipient of the 2021 Unbound United States Artists Fellowship in craft. His work was recently on view at Institute of Contemporary
Art/Boston in his solo exhibition Fantasy and Truth. Nassar lives and works in New York, NY.
Jordan Nassar Third Family Triangle, 2022
Spanish Cedar, Alaskan Yellow Cedar, Black Walnut, Purple Heart, Avocado, Paradox Walnut, Sapele, Brass, and Mother of Pearl
30" x 34 ¹⁄₂" x 1 ¹⁄₄" [HxWxD] (76.2 x 87.63 x 3.18 cm)
Inventory #JN1265
Jordan Nassar Third Family Pentagon, 2022
Spanish Cedar, White Oak, Hemlock, Hard Maple, Chinese Elm, Purple Heart, Figured Black Walnut, African Mahogany, Black Locust, Brass, and Mother of Pearl
30" x 38" x 1" [HxWxD] (76.2 x 96.52 x 2.54 cm)
Inventory #JN1274
Jordan Nassar Third Family Heptagon, 2022
Spanish Cedar, Figured Black Walnut, Paradox Walnut, Padouk, Purple Heart, Chinese Elm, Avocado, Black Acacia, Sapele, Brass, and Mother of Pearl
30" x 31" x 1 ¹⁄₄" [HxWxD] (76.2 x 78.74 x 3.18 cm)
Inventory #JN1263
Jordan Nassar I Tell the Sun's Story, 2019
Hand embroidered cotton on cotton on canvas, artist frame
31.25 x 35" [HxW] (79.38 x 88.9 cm)
Inventory #JN1131
“The work they do at the Ali Forney Center is so vital for our queer community; I am just grateful that my work gives me the opportunity to support their work protecting and empowering young queer lives.” —Jordan Nassar
Peter Blum Gallery has now opened the exhibition ‘Fabric’ featuring the work of 10 artists June 4, 2023
Nassar's imagined landscapes evoke a connection to Palestine and the Palestinian‐American diaspora, expressing both joy and diasporic longing in relation to his cultural identity.
Interested in starting conversations through his art, Nassar has developed a rich visual language that goes beyond aesthetics to tackle the complexity of reality and identity. —Karine Monié
Anat Ebgi's booth featured an incredible selection of prints, sculptures, paintings, and textiles, and also reflected the current broader emphasis on work by emerging women artists and artists of color, as well as craft materials and techniques seen in both the primary and secondary markets. — Ayanna Dozier
Nassar has adapted the matrilineally-learned tradition of Palestinian tatreez, or cross stitch to mirror his hybridized upbringing. Each hand-embroidered work is stretched and framed, bringing Nassar’s embroidery practice into a dialogue with painting. —Victoria Burns
The abstract designs flickered in and out of primacy, materially imbricated within passages that contoured low, sloping hills—all of which were portrayed with a more or less uniform type of stitching. — Suzanne Hudson
Jordan Nassar | 8 Must-See Gallery Exhibitions in March 2022
Continuing his inventive use of techniques and materials from the Arab world through eight new embroidered landscapes depicting serene scenes of suns and moons rising above mountains in patterned skies. — Paul Laster
Embroidered visions of a peaceful Palestine – in pictures
“The land in my works manifest the imaginations of Palestinians outside Palestine... In our dreams, there is no occupation, no anguish – our Palestine is beautiful and serene.” —Jordan Nassar
Jordan Nassar Tells Poetic Stories Through His Exquisite Embroidery
His education in linguistics influences the way he harmonizes geometries and landscapes, but the true magic of his work lies in the imagination of place. —Osman Can Yerebakan
6 Palestinian design houses rewriting the global narrative about their home
For The Sea Beneath Our Eyes, another 2019 show at the Center for Contemporary Art Tel Aviv, Nassar joined hands with craftspeople from across the region of different ethnicities. He furnished an apartment with Hebron glass and khamsa wall hangings made in Jaffa sitting alongside woodwork from Bethlehem, basketwork by Ethiopian immigrants and Armenian ceramics. —The Express Tribune
Nassar’s works are both intimate and personal, yet expand to the universal; his crafts signal the infinite, interconnected nature of things, while the discernible presence of his hand reminds us of our humanity. —Charlotte Jansen
From Embroidery To Entryways To Colorful Kitchens, Here’s What’s Trending
In a nod to his heritage, Jordan Nassar, who is based in Brooklyn, N.Y., features traditional Palestinian hand embroidery, mostly cross stitch, arranged “in ways that you wouldn’t find in Palestine.” —Sotheby's
Opening at the end of a very long year that many people spent in varying degrees of lockdown, Jordan Nassar’s current exhibition at Louisville’s KMAC Museum achieves what I would have thought impossible: it evokes a longing for home. —Natalie Weis
In impressive new textile works, Jordan Nassar employs tatreez, Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery, to generate fields of ornate geometric patterns and interrupt them with insets of evocative, abstract landscapes — hills and valleys, the sun and sky. The effect is beguiling and deliberately ambiguous, with color and pattern choices that play between continuity and contrast. —Sidhartha Mitter
The decorative motifs that Nassar uses prompt a conversation about the relationship of Western and non-Western traditions. A distanced engagement with cultural heritage, as when Nassar worked from books of patterns, raises the issue of cultural transmission and appropriation. —Selvedge
The New York artist on the lineage of his embroidered artwork, connecting with his Palestinian identity and his newest exacting medium, hand-blown glass beads. —Julie Belcove
In Nassar’s quietly moving show, diasporic Palestinian identity is expressed through a reverent engagement with craft, entwined with inherited longing for a beloved but unfamiliar land. —Johanna Fateman
Two Exhibitions At Anat Ebgi Gallery You Need To Know About
These new works continue ongoing dialogues in Nassar’s practice between his own embroidery and its connection to Palestinian places and cultural traditions. —Katinka Haugnaess
"Additionally, as our quarantine has become compounded with a new rise in activism, I also spent time researching and contributing to this information sharing, especially when it comes to daily events in Palestine and general conversations around Palestine. I've become increasingly aware that many Americans don't talk about Palestine because they feel like they don't know enough about it and feel like it's complicated—so it became clear to me that we need to get people to learn about it." —Jordan Nassar
Jordan Nassar is the Palestinian-American Painter Using Art To Connect With His Homeland
"I have been lucky enough to become a part of a community of this talented generation of Arab diaspora in New York that you mention. We share ideas and work and lives and music and food and just really have this Arab-American community of artists and musicians and writers and curators that I feel is my true “homeland” – even more than Palestine itself." —Jordan Nassar
The art of tatreez: How Jordan Nassar is teaching the world to master Palestinian embroidery
After stitching traditional patterns for a few years as a hobby, one day he introduced the form of a mountain. He put an image of the finished work on Instagram, and a director of Anat Ebgi gallery in Los Angeles messaged him "immediately," he says, asking to see more. —Melissa Gronlund
Standout Artists On Display at ADAA: The Art Show 2020
By introducing landscape into pattern and leaving an abundance of blank space, he creates contemplations on land lost, remembered, and imagined, the perennial diasporic exercise. Nassar’s frames and display case, as well as the accompanying catalog produced entirely in Arabic, are exquisite. —Sonja Roach
Palestinian artist Jordan Nassar was inspired by tatreez, the traditional Palestinian craft of embroidery, an art found in an antique dress that Nassar discovered. —Kira Reinke
Jordan Nassar’s new apartment exhibition lives between the Israel, Palestine binary
In “The Sea Beneath Our Eyes,” a studio apartment is fully furnished with items that Nassar has made in collaboration with local craftspeople, from textiles woven by Bedouin Arabs to baskets by Ethiopian Jews, to ceramic tiles from Armenians in East Jerusalem. —Aaron Hicklin
When You’re Palestinian, American and Jewish, Life — Like Your Art — Is Complicated
Jordan Nassar grew up in New York, where he internalized his Palestinian ancestors’ dream of returning to the homeland. With a new exhibition in Tel Aviv, the artist explains why he feels part Israeli and won’t advocate for either side of the conflict. —Jen Bernard
Critic’s Pick: Jordan Nassar at Princeton University Art Museum
The stitched patterns function as mediating layers, both screens and veils, through which a yearned-for homeland can be simultaneously known, remembered, and, possibly, forgotten.
“Jordan Nassar is capable of opening new avenues to redefine what an artwork can be,” said Nicola Trezzi, CCA Tel Aviv’s director and chief curator, “from continuing the legacy of abstraction in painting to the notion of landscape and its political implications; from the role of craft in the digital era to the link between tradition and identity, especially considering his use of Palestinian embroidery patterns.”
Gowanus Artist Jordan Nassar Conveys Longing in Landscapes With Palestinian Motifs
The Gowanus-based artist Jordan Nassar’s richly detailed landscapes offer colorful, imaginative terrain that, although beautiful at first glance, reveal greater depths the more you look at them. But unlike most landscape artists, his chosen medium isn’t painting or photography — it’s hand embroidery. —Craig Hubert
Nassar generates these symbols via computer and then meticulously hand-stitches them onto carefully mapped-out patterns. In the enmeshing and encoding of these symbols within his work, Nassar roots his practice in a linguistic and geopolitical field of play characterized by both conflict and harmony. —Eyal De Leeuw
Finding Both Comfort and Challenge in the Idea of “Home”
Taking its title from a line from Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, the show rejects the notion that “home” is reducible to a fixed place or static dream, conceiving of it instead as an animating force that sets people adrift in the pursuit of intimacy and belonging. —Harry Tafoya
Jordan Nassar is Redefining What it Means to be an Artist
What is completely refreshing about Nassar is his innovation – the sheer amount of work the produces across disciplines is not only broad but all of it is really good. Rather than focusing on marketing one medium, Nassar is an artistic hotpot and a creative example to us all. —Roisin Tapponi
'I love using landscape as a vehicle for work with color and composition, in a painterly way.' Landscapes tend to be more accessible that pure abstraction, says Nassar, and he has a message to communicate. —Christies
The works included in the exhibition celebrate the dissonance of loving the home they’ve found while championing, as Baldwin notes, “…the right to criticize her perpetually.”
American-Palestinian Artist Jordan Nassar Examines The Crossovers of Culture, Identity and Tradition
Adopting the female generationally learned tradition of Palestinian tatreez, Nassar’s take on the symbolic, geographically specific embroidery mirrors his hybrid existence. —Katrina Kufer
By disrupting traditional craft with imaginary motifs, Nassar articulates his relationship to inherited memory in conceptual and formal experiments. —Canvas
In the gallery, the viewer looks through the lens of traditional embroidery as if parting thick foliage, able to survey a utopian vision of Palestine but unable to step fully into its geographical embrace. And that painful distance is soaked in longing. —Danna Lorch
Threads of Identity: An Interview with Jordan Nassar
"What bothers me about the perception of Israel and Palestine in America, or the West, is that people somehow treat it as a black and white issue; a simple, this-is-right-and-this-is-wrong kind of thing. All I want people to understand is that there is a contradiction to everything they think about Israel and Palestine." —Jordan Nassar
Unrestrained by colour palette, the craftswomen lay the foundations of Jordan’s kaleidoscopic panoramas, in which randomness of colour selection gives way to an evident complementarity and the impression that Jordan does, in fact, belong. —Magpie
How This Brooklyn-Based Artist is Transforming Palestinian Folk Art
Jordan Nassar is taking the centuries-old art and turning it into poetic depictions of some of the most deeply contested land in the world. —Rebecca Bengal
Jordan Nassar is delicately weaving a new vision into one of Palestine’s cultural legacies
Born and raised in New York City, Nassar’s work is a dialogue on longing—one set against the backdrop of the Palestinian diaspora—for a peaceful resolution to difficult conditions in the Middle East. He is married to an Israeli, and so this resolution is often portrayed across his work in open, embracing terms. —Alex Bacon
Jordan Nassar’s work is rooted in his Palestinian identity, but in subtle and rich ways it also illuminates how identity is built on a constant process of cross-pollination and cultural accumulation. —Aaron Hicklin
Although there’s an undercurrent in his work that touches on issues of colonialism and occupation, he avoids tackling those problems explicitly. —Ariela Gittlen
Review: Jordan Nassar at Anat Ebgi: Palestinian cross-stitch art as boundary-breaker
If only negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis could work themselves out as respectfully and inventively as Jordan Nassar has negotiated the divergent forces feeding into his work. —Leah Ollman
Meet the Married Artist Couple Bridging the Israeli-Palestinian Divide
"When I met Amir, I started going to Israel, and I was also a baby artist. It converged to make me want to do something Palestinian. I was doing crafty, textile stuff at the time, and in wanting to do something that was emblematic of my heritage, I recalled that this embroidery was all over my house growing up. It became obvious that it was a visual I should start playing around with." —Jordan Nassar
"I should start with the fundamentals - my work is based in Palestinian traditional embroidery, most of it is on dresses and in the home, where it's on pillows and wall hangings. Most cultures around the world have cross-stitch traditions, but Palestinian cross-stitch is recognizable for its density and recognizable composition." —Jordan Nassar
A Couple of Artists | Jordan Nassar & Amir Guberstein
"I suppose it’s because Israel-Palestine is and has always been so central to both of our lives, and by marrying each other, we basically locked in our relationship to The Conflict." —Jordan Nassar
"The pixel! The pixel has been so hot lately, and cross-stitch is, in a way, the first pixellation. But Palestinian traditional embroidery is interesting because there is a clear dividing line, a turning point in history, between pre-European and post-European Palestinian embroidery." —Jordan Nassar
"As an artist, I started making work about four years ago, which I suppose was also a natural progression — but only started when, due to other events in my life, I started working through what I feel is my fundamental “issue” — Palestine, Israel, and growing up with the conflict as a second-generation Palestinian-(Polish)-American raised on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, who is gay and married to an Israeli." —Jordan Nassar
Feature on Littlestar Weekly, www.littlestarjournal.com, August 1, 2016.
2015
LVL3, “Artist of the Week: Jordan Nassar,” September 15, 2015.
Selected Bibliography of Self-Published Artist's Books
2016
A Whole New World
We Were Here First
Bellevue
Any Other Rose
Messenger of the Gods
Kahlil Gibran
2015
When It’s Naked
Ma Rose Apocalypse
Collections
Bonnier Collection, Stockholm
Dallas Art Museum, Dallas, TX
Fidelity Collection, Boston, MA
Israel Museum, Tel Aviv
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Marciano Foundation, Los Angeles, CA
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Videos
Jordan Nassar: Fantasy and Truth | The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston
Jordan Nassar talks about how Palestinian craft and culture and his experience as a Palestinian-American have informed his exhibition “Fantasy and Truth” at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston.
August 2022
Jordan Nassar: Let’s Tatreez
New York based artist of Palestinian descent Jordan Nassar embroiders landscape compositions, which are framed by, and built up through, repeating patterns adapted from traditional Palestinian motifs. His work notions of an imagined, idyllic space: the sort of utopian vision of Palestine held by the displaced constituents that comprise the region’s diaspora.
![This image depicts an artwork by Jordan Nassar titled "The sun swings from one universe to another." This artwork was created in 2022 and measures 49" x 101" x 1" [HxWxD] (124.46 x 256.54 x 2.54 cm). Its medium is Hand embroidered cotton on cotton.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Jordan-Nassar_JN1289_1681414519.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jordan Nassar titled "Green Spring Purple." This artwork was created in 2022 and measures Framed 26 ⁵⁄₈" x 46 ⁵⁄₈" x 2 ¹⁄₄" [HxWxD] (67.64 x 118.44 x 5.72 cm); 25 ¹⁄₂" x 45 ¹⁄₂" [HxW] (64.77 x 115.57 cm). Its medium is Hand-embroidered cotton on cotton.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Jordan-Nassar_JN1281_1681414526.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jordan Nassar titled "The Pink Column." This artwork was created in 2022 and measures Framed 51 ⁵⁄₈" x 33 ³⁄₄" x 2 ¹⁄₄" [HxWxD] (131.14 x 85.73 x 5.72 cm); 50 ¹⁄₂" x 32 ¹⁄₂" x 1" [HxWxD] (128.27 x 82.55 x 2.54 cm). Its medium is Hand-embroidered cotton on cotton.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Jordan-Nassar_JN1280_1681414528.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jordan Nassar titled "Écrasante beauté." This artwork was created in 2022 and measures 36" x 82" x 1" [HxWxD] (91.44 x 208.28 x 2.54 cm). Its medium is Hand-embroidered cotton on cotton.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Jordan-Nassar_JN1287_1681414521.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jordan Nassar titled "A sun in the room." This artwork was created in 2021 and measures 27" x 29" [HxW] (68.58 x 73.66 cm). Its medium is Hand-embroidered cotton on cotton.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Jordan-Nassar_JN1245_1681414555.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jordan Nassar titled "A Sun in an Old Sky." This artwork was created in 2022 and measures 37" x 62 ¹⁄₂" x 1" [HxWxD] (93.98 x 158.75 x 2.54 cm). Its medium is Hand embroidered cotton on cotton, artist frame.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Jordan-Nassar_JN1270_1681414542.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jordan Nassar titled "A Sun Rolling on the Sky." This artwork was created in 2022 and measures 39 ¹⁄₂" x 61" x 1" [HxWxD] (100.33 x 154.94 x 2.54 cm). Its medium is Hand-embroidered cotton on cotton, artist frame.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Jordan-Nassar_JN1262_1681414550.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jordan Nassar titled "Third Family Triangle." This artwork was created in 2022 and measures 30" x 34 ¹⁄₂" x 1 ¹⁄₄" [HxWxD] (76.2 x 87.63 x 3.18 cm). Its medium is Spanish Cedar, Alaskan Yellow Cedar, Black Walnut, Purple Heart, Avocado, Paradox Walnut, Sapele, Brass, and Mother of Pearl.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Jordan-Nassar_JN1265_1681414534.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jordan Nassar titled "Third Family Pentagon." This artwork was created in 2022 and measures 30" x 38" x 1" [HxWxD] (76.2 x 96.52 x 2.54 cm). Its medium is Spanish Cedar, White Oak, Hemlock, Hard Maple, Chinese Elm, Purple Heart, Figured Black Walnut, African Mahogany, Black Locust, Brass, and Mother of Pearl.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Jordan-Nassar_JN1274_1681414537.jpg)
![This image depicts an artwork by Jordan Nassar titled "Third Family Heptagon." This artwork was created in 2022 and measures 30" x 31" x 1 ¹⁄₄" [HxWxD] (76.2 x 78.74 x 3.18 cm). Its medium is Spanish Cedar, Figured Black Walnut, Paradox Walnut, Padouk, Purple Heart, Chinese Elm, Avocado, Black Acacia, Sapele, Brass, and Mother of Pearl.](https://anatebgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Jordan-Nassar_JN1263_1681414546.jpg)
