The growing global attention on Palestinian art reveals a thriving creative scene that pairs memory with resistance and beauty with resilience. Across generations and mediums, from embroidery to barbed wire,these five artists offer a poignant lens into Palestinian life, culture, and identity.
Samar Hussaini: Heritage in Thread and Texture
For Samar Hussaini, ancestral memory is stitched directly into her art. Drawing deeply from her Palestinian heritage, she merges mixed-media painting with tatreez—traditional Palestinian embroidery. Born in the United States, Hussaini holds a BFA in Art History and Studio Arts from the University of Maryland, and a Master’s degree in Communication Design from Pratt Institute, New York.
Artwork featured: A Home for Memory
Her work celebrates craft traditions as acts of visual storytelling, layering fabric, paint, and thread to speak of belonging, displacement, and pride. Each stitch becomes a symbol of continuity: cultural preservation woven into contemporary practice.
Nabil Anani: Landscapes of Hope
A cornerstone of modern Palestinian art, Nabil Anani, now 81, continues to paint the landscapes of his homeland with joy and optimism. In his Ramallah studio, the artist often mixes natural materials—sumac, turmeric, zaatar, wood, and straw—into his paintings, evoking the organic warmth of Palestine’s terrain.
For four decades, Anani’s canvases have depicted a world without walls or checkpoints, an imagined terrain of serenity rooted in memory. His “Arab impressionism,” bathed in pure, bright color, captures both the physical and emotional landscapes of resistance and renewal.
Dima Srouji: Reclaiming the Excavated Past
Based between Ramallah and London, interdisciplinary artist and architect Dima Srouji excavates loss literally and metaphorically. Her works which are often crafted in glass intersect archaeology, architecture, and politics, challenging how colonial narratives have erased or claimed Palestinian heritage.
Image details: Hybrid Exhalations: Bamboo x Hand Blown Glass
Srouji’s practice is a quiet protest. By reinterpreting artifacts and ancient forms, she reclaims the stories of her ancestors, transforming fragility into strength and transparency into defiance.
Abdul Rahman Katanani: Barbed-Wire Realities
Born in 1983 in Beirut’s Sabra refugee camp, Abdul Rahman Katanani channels the material reality of exile into monumental art. The third-generation Palestinian refugee began as a cartoonist at just 15, using satire to expose corruption and highlight daily camp life.
His later sculptures, often constructed from barbed wire, corrugated iron, and recycled materials, are visceral testaments to struggle and survival. Works like Wave—a massive tsunami sculpted entirely from barbed wire—capture both the fury and endurance of a people forced into perpetual motion. Katanani’s art doesn’t simply reflect pain; it transforms it into raw, kinetic energy.
Hazem Harb: Memory Without Nostalgia
Born in Gaza in 1980, Hazem Harb bridges academic rigor and emotional clarity in his exploration of Palestinian history. With an MFA from the European Institute of Design in Rome, he now lives between Rome and Dubai. Harb’s practice spans collage, photography, painting, and mixed media—each layering fragments of memory and architecture to confront erasure.
Rejecting romanticism, Harb presents the truth of war, exile, and collective trauma with bold precision. His works reside in major collections including the British Museum and Centre Pompidou, testament to his growing international resonance. Through his methodical compositions, Harb insists on remembrance without sentimentality, history reconstructed, not mourned.
Together, these five artists embody the multiplicity of Palestinian experience, tender yet unyielding, rooted yet restless. Their art resists invisibility, ensuring that identity, land, and memory continue to find space on the global canvas.
Athmaja Biju is the Editor at Abir Pothi. She is a Translator and Writer working on Visual Culture.
