GAZA CITY: Palestinian artist Abeer Jebril’s paintings show ballerinas chained in barbed wire, dancing on rocks, or facing barricades to mirror what she calls the “ticking bomb” reality of women in Gaza.

Jebril, 35, hopes her portraits will bring attention to the social and political problems women face in Gaza, home to two million people and devastated by wars and economic restrictions.

“The reason I chose the ballet dancer is that I see her as an icon of beauty and power,” said Jebril, who is inspired by Degas, the French Impressionist.

“It shows what the woman feels, lives, faces and how she is chained, it shows what she feels in Gaza to the audience.” she said.

One of her paintings depicts a dancer with her feet chained in barbed wire. Another is stepping on rocks while a third woman wraps her body around a grenade. “Men and women are both in chains under the occupation,” Jebril said.

She said her paintings also shed light on how “women suffer from the dominance of men and the inability to have a say on issues that matter.”

Men and women, Jebril said, “live in a ticking bomb in Gaza,” not knowing what will happen next.

Jebril said she got ideas for her paintings from moves by international ballet dancers and those of her 11-year-old daughter Maya, who dances ballet.

Her portaits, created using painter’s knives, have been displayed in galleries in some European and Arab countries.

“I felt despair seeing paintings displayed outside Gaza when I couldn’t be there. I so much had hoped to have stood next to them,” she said.