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2024 Ohio Artist Registry Juried Exhibition
Bio
Noel Maghathe is a queer, mixed Palestinian-American performance installation artist. Maghathe creates and performs with queer functional tools to navigate the world. Their practice focuses on their Palestinian heritage and the occupation of Palestine, their love and pride for their country, and sharing the pain of occupation and their longing for their country to educate their audience. Connecting with other Palestinian artists in the diaspora is vital to the work Maghathe creates.
Maghathe holds a BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 2017, where they were awarded the Stephen H. Wilder Traveling Scholarship. In 2022 Maghathe exhibited at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, Pancake House Gallery, Maelstrom Collaborative Arts, and more. They are currently creating work in their studio based in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Artist Statement
Noel Maghathe’s work focuses on the artist’s Palestinian heritage and the occupation of Palestine. Maghathe’s love and pride for their country is in constant strain with the pain of occupation and a longing for their country. With this collection of performative objects, Maghathe has crafted candles out of beeswax that are gestural stand-ins that relate to the artist’s performance practice.
By using beeswax, Maghathe evokes the freedom and restraints of nature. Representing the ardent flightpath of bees in search of pollinating a region free of human boundaries and settling in their home upon return. But, bees are also outfitted with languages such as queen, worker and drone: language that reflects on the subjugation of the beekeeper who uses the resource of location to claim property over the colony.
The gestures of the candles in this work are not meant to depict unification, but are charged with the intrinsic properties of burning slowly. Maghathe considers these sculptures as performances in their own right; replacing wax for the body, the pieces create movement with twists of a wick, unraveling a story. The wax, once hardened, can represent a barrier but will always melt away. I will wait refers to the time passing through a melting candle as well as the ongoing resistance from Palestinians waiting to be free.
