Collaborative Painting

Make it stand out.

What do you see?

A frog?

A duck?

A bird, or two?

A loads of squiggles and weird shapes?

Depending on your view, you'll see something different.

This painting was created right after the pandemic, by a group of strangers, led by Luke Palmer, who told us the story of Tunisian Collaborative Art.

Born under censorship in 1980s Tunisia, Tunisian Collaborative Painting was created by artist Hechmi Ghachem as a silent act of resistance. Artists worked silently, simultaneously on one canvas, no rules, no hierarchy, no erasing the others.

Just trust, chaos, and emergence.

It was radical then.

It’s powerful now.

After spreading to the U.S. and UK, this method became more than an art form, it became a metaphor for modern leadership, inclusion, and co-creation.

No single author.

No ego.

Just a shared commitment to expression, collaboration, and collective beauty.

The canvas doesn't lie: how we work together shows.

In the canvas below, we each started in our own corner of the canvas, steering clear of each others painting.

Slowly, one person added to anothers painting.

Then one person painted over someone else'e painting.

With each stroke, you could see everyone watch the reactions of the other, to figure out what was acceptable and what was not.

The collaboration may not have produced a Sotheby's worthy masterpiece, but it created bonds and understanding, pushed boundaries, and allowed tacit agreements to emerge, all in under a couple of hours, simply one brush stoke at a time.

When you take time to feel, to step back and consider, rather than rush in with words, to become curious and act from a place of wonder, you can achieve so much in a really short time.

Evberyone walked away from the experience learning so much about everyone in the room.

Two people went on to work together, one joined a programme to learn from another and two became very close friends.

Six people, two hours, life changing experiences.