Grape leaves, which are often used as a mouth-watering meal in Palestinian cuisine, have received new use by a young, skilled Palestinian artist from Gaza.
Lynn El Hajj, 21, uses dried violence paper as a canvas on which to paint her paintings.
Lin studies psychology in the besieged Gaza Strip and practices grape leaves only in her spare time. Art is the special way that Lynn expresses her passion for Palestinian local culture, using one of the most popular symbols of this culture as the basis for her paintings.
Lynn collects grape leaves from her family's garden, and while some use her to prepare a delicious meal, she keeps the relatively large leaves to draw on.
After cleaning the paper, Lin keeps it for days in a book to stay flat and dry. The young artist uses acrylic colors to paint on grape leaves and spends about three hours completing the painting. Once her painting is complete, Lin puts it in one of those photo frames to protect her from damage.
When Lynn initially displayed her paintings to some of her associates, she encouraged her to continue this remarkable work.
Lin pointed out that the canvas of her different paintings not only offers something different, but at the same time, cheaper than other painting materials.
The young woman shows her artwork on her social media pages but does not sell her.
As she stuffed grape leaves with her daughter's help, Lin's mother said: “She was able to do a visualization of her mind so that she would reflect or harness the grape leaves, something that would be nice to the heart of every Palestinian like I said, for something possible that would delight the soul and the eye in general and spread some kind of positive energy or kind. From happiness, let us say, in the society we live in. ''
The young artist has so far participated in three local exhibitions and hopes to one day participate in an international exhibition.