Wolfgang Gallery is also pleased to announce that we will be featuring works by Saj Issa in our front gallery during the duration of Cultivate. SAJ ISSA is a Palestinian American artist born in Saint Louis and raised between the Midwest and West Bank, Palestine. She received her BFA from Webster University and her MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Issa was one of three artists selected for the 2024 Great Rivers Biennial, which will open at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis in September and will include the artist's "Poppy Paintings" which has been presented in Artforum along with a portfolio of her practice. She has held residencies at the Belger Crane Yard Studios in Kansas City, MO, and Craft Alliance in Saint Louis. Issa was a recipient of the 2022 NCECA Graduate Student Fellowship. She has been featured in interviews with Hyperallergic, Juxtapoz, Khama, New American Paintings, the New Yorker, and Office Magazine.  

Saj Issa began creating poppy paintings in her Saint Louis studio as quick warm-ups last October, using a recipe of cadmium-yellow, cadmium red, crimson red, and olive green. Inspired by Sister Corita's activism, Issa brought one of her paintings to an anti-war demonstration over the Israel war on Palestine, seeking to create new symbols in an era overwhelmed by polarizing slogans. As she continued attending protests, Issa distributed her paintings to fellow demonstrators, who carried them during marches and then returned them afterward. Inscribed on the back in place of a signature, each painting reads, “Return to Saj; Return to Palestine” with the date the painting was created. In a recent Artforum article, Saj wrote, “I didn’t have any expectations of how long I would be making poppy paintings. My practice had become intertwined with the grief I faced daily. As I’d witnessed the poppies blooming in Palestine, I wanted to take every poppy painting from my studio and have it held up at a demonstration. It felt like a new spring. Not just because the reds and yellows of the paintings outnumbered the colors of the flag, but because the demographic of the protesters had completely changed. I have been attending these gatherings since the days when I was in a stroller and have witnessed their evolution over time. I thought about how ironic it was that every city I’d traveled to was holding some sort of vigil, protest, march, or rally. Every city except the very one we are all standing up for, because of the consequences its citizens would suffer for speaking their truth.”

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