Blurry figures make a strong statement on freedom in Steve Sabella’s exhibition at Meem Gallery

Steve Sabella's show Independence talks of the Palestinian struggle as well as the human condition.

An artwork from Steve Sabella's exhibition Independence. Courtesy Meem Gallery

In August, the Jerusalem-born artist Steve Sabella issued a declaration of independence. “I declare that I no longer accept any national labels or classifications ... except for those that I choose for myself,” he stated on his website. “From this day onward, I declare that I am a citizen of planet Earth and beyond. I am from everywhere and nowhere. No geography or culture defines me … I have uprooted myself and choose to plant my roots in the air, to always remain in transition. Free.”

While this is poignant in terms of the Palestinian struggle, it also speaks volumes about Sabella’s practice as an artist.

His current exhibition, Independence, is a body of photographic works that was realised in 2013 and is showing at Meem Gallery in Dubai. It depicts figurative forms floating in a deliberately undefined space. The images were all taken on Sabella's smartphone – a protest against the very medium itself.

“[In this series] I liberated myself from the medium of photography. It’s not about the camera, only the image,” he says.

While the composition of each image has been clearly choreo­graphed, the explanation for each one is vague. There are no titles, no corresponding text and very little in terms of an artist’s statement.

“I leave it up to the viewer to decide what the work is about,” he says. “I will not dictate to any­one. I want the image itself to speak; remember, it is visual art, so we need to look at the image first.”

The collection of images shows blurry figures against a black background, so the eye is drawn to shape and form, in the same way as it would be in an abstract painting.

Kamal Boullata, another Palestinian artist, who wrote the foreword for Sabella’s new monograph, writes that for “the last decade, Sabella has been using his camera as the painter uses his brush”. In his essay, he describes Sabella’s progression towards abstraction, use of photography as a medium and the influence of the arabesque and Islamic geometry on his work – which can be identified in some of Sabella’s earlier photos.

The current show, however, corresponds with his online statement on independence.

As Sabella has “divorced” himself from his work, so his subjects are divorced from time, place or history. They are independent in the same way that he has declared himself to be.

“I see myself as a visual investigator,” he says, explaining his statement. “When I freed myself from the medium and from the image itself, I freed myself from occupation. I think every Palestinian should wake up and say they are free, we don’t need anyone to tell us that. We are all born free and it is the system that has colonised our imagination telling us we are occupied.” The series, he explains, is a result of his journey “to transform the political problem into a visual dilemma”.

He is quick to counter that the Palestinian problem and the loaded word of independence is only relevant at the moment. In years, or generations to come, this body of work may not have the same effect.

“My images give visual form to my imagination, but they speak to other people differently. In fact, there are many questions when you look at my work, such as: What are we looking at? Is it birth, death, rebirth, purgatory? Where are we? The important thing is that the questions are there and the answers are not. My mission as an artist is to create something visually unique and I think art that gives all the answers doesn’t stand the test of time.”

• Independence by Steve Sabella runs until December 6 at Meem Gallery. For more information, visit www.meemartgallery.com