Khalil Rabah

Khalil Rabah is a Palestinian artist who lives and works in Ramallah. He was born in Jerusalem in 1961 and gained a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Texas, USA in 1991. He taught at the Department of Fine Art in Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem from 1997-2000. He has had numerous international solo shows and has shown at the Sao Paolo, Sydney, Kwanju and Istanbul Biennales. Rabah is also the co-founder of the Al-Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art in Jerusalem. He utilises conceptual installation, video, photography and performance and incorporates materials emblematic of his Palestinian identity: olive trees, olive oil, stones, silk embroidery threads, soil and lentils.
The overriding themes of displacement and replacement, context and identity are at once a part of Rabah’s personal history and that of his country. Through his engagement with the natural world these are extended into the wider ideas of man’s relationship with nature and human suffering on a global scale. Also crucial to his method is the exploration of the epistemological means through which anthropology and natural history are apprehended by society and how the discourses of fact and fiction can be blended to create new meaning.