Born in Libya in 1982, Mohammed Al Haj is a Palestinian refugee from the village of Kawkaba. Al Haj graduated with a BA in Art Education from Al Aqsa University in Gaza City in 2004. He is a founding member of the Palestinian Visual Artists Association in Gaza and one of its administrative members, and also a member of the Paletta Contemporary Art Group. His painting style varies from one school of art to another, from abstraction to expressionism to paintings that are “pop art” in nature. He has participated in exhibitions and festivals both inside and outside of Palestine. As a young artist from Gaza, Al Haj represents a perfect exemplar when talking about young, contemporary visual art experiences in a city that suffers from almost complete disconnection from the rest of Palestine, from the rest of the Arab world and the wider global surroundings and where the challenges facing Palestinian artists in general take on a more complex and difficult form in a place burdened by the manifestations of war, siege and division which profoundly affect young artists.
Selected exhibitions:
– ‘Displacement’ , 2021 , Gaza City
– ‘Never to be Removed’, 2018–2019, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem, Ramallah and Al Bireh
– ‘Pages from a Homeland’, 2015, a joint exhibition in Amman, Jordan, with the Jordanian artist Muhammad Al-Daghleis
– ‘A Black Entity in White Space’, 2013, Gaza City
– ‘Palestinian Features’, 2007, Gaza City