Samah Shihadi Palestinian, b. 1987

Biography

Samah Shihadi draws inspiration from her family's experiences, navigating the traumatic history of the Palestinian people and their traditions. Using hyperrealism as her chosen medium, she unearths issues surrounding identity, her society, and the political realities that shape her world.

Shihadi's delicate drawings, made with great precision, touch on topics central to contemporary art and offer a pronouncement and visual report that fluctuates between the internal, personal, social and cultural. Her drawings, created in a slow, meticulous, and prolonged work process, also evoke a sense of urgency and immediacy regarding subjects in the here and now: the status of women in society, tradition and religious belief versus social and political reality, and local landscapes charged with history.

Shihadi holds an MFA from the University of Haifa and a B.Ed. in art from Oranim Academic College of Education. A recipient of multiple awards, Shihadi has showcased her work extensively internationally. Her work has been collected by institutions including LACMA.

EDUCATION
2013-2015 MFA The Art Department, Haifa University
2008-2012 B.Ed. Art & Education, Oranim College

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SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2025, In Between, Kulturhaus Villa Strauli, Winterthur, Switzerland

2024, Back to Berlin, Livingstone Gallery, The Hague, The Netherlands
2023-24, Berlin Diary, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
2023, MORE Museum, Netherlands

2020, Terra (Un)firma, Tabari Artspace, Dubai, UAE
2019, Spellbound; The way home, Wilfrid Israel Museum, Hazorea

2018, Hungry for Home, Tabari Artspace, Dubai, UAE
2015, Machanaim, Machanaim Art Gallery,

2015, Wanted, Umm el fahem Gallery, Umm el fahem

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025, All Directions, Fenix Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands

2024, Lucid Dreams, Jerusalem
2024, Fabric, Sweat, and Tears, Gordon–London House Municipal Art Gallery, Rishon LeZion
2024, Hold Everything Dear, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv

2023, Palestinian Art Stands in Cultural Resistance, CAP Kuwait, Kuwait
2023, Ghost Trees, Mishkenot Sha’ananim, Jerusalem
2023, Women Defining Women in Contemporary Art of the Middle East and Beyond, LACMA, Los Angeles, USA

2022, Roma Arte, Nuvola, Rome, Italy
2022, Volta Art Fair, Basel, Switzerland
2022, Ecmnesia, Cosmo Gallery, Rome, Italy
2022, Food Weave, Chelouche Gallery, Tel Aviv

2021, Terra (Un)Firma: The Haifa Way, Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa
2021, 1+1, Payramida Gallery, Haifa
2021, Breathing, Mishkenot Sha’ananim, Jerusalem
2021, Inside/Out, CAP Kuwait, Kuwait

2020, Abu Dhabi Art, Abu Dhabi, UAE
2020, Bodyscapes, Jerusalem

2019, Objects of Imagination, Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman, Jordan
2019, Family Stories, Kunstmuseum Bochum, Bochum, Germany
2019, Beyond the Veil, Mémoire de l’Avenir Gallery, Paris, France
2019, Our Permanent Guardian, Yasser Arafat Museum, Ramallah
2019, Belonging, Dubai, UAE
2019, 1948, Haifa City Museum, Haifa
2019, Limitless, The Gallery at the Walled Off Hotel, Bethlehem

2018, Khamsa, Islamic Museum, Jerusalem
2018, Art Dubai, Dubai, UAE
2018, House… Houses, The Gallery at the Walled Off Hotel, Bethlehem
2018, Motion Trap, Idris Gallery, Tel Aviv

2017, A Sight of Disjunction, MANGM, Haifa
2017, A Sight of Disjunction, Beit Saa, Ramallah
2017, Hamsin, The Collaborative Art Centre, Givat Haviva
2017, Third Identity, CAP Kuwait, Kuwait

2016, Head & Tails, Binyamin Gallery, Tel Aviv
2016, Roots of Identity, Art on 56th Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon
2016, Paper Biennale 6, Artists’ House, Jerusalem
2016, The Winners: Ministry of Culture and Sport Prizes for Art and Design, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Herzliya
2016, Ticho House, Jerusalem
2016, Palestine: Format Actuel, MAC.A Expo 2, Asilah, Morocco
2016, The Identity of the Palestinian Artist, Umm El-Fahem Gallery, Umm El-Fahem
2016, Fresh Paint 8, Tel Aviv Port, Tel Aviv
2016, Durability, Dar Al-Kalima University College of Art and Culture, Bethlehem
2016, Crossroads, Zawyeh Gallery, Ramallah

2015, Spots and Signatures, Sister House, Tel Aviv
2015, Spots and Signatures, The House of Culture & Art, Nazareth
2015, Bread and Roses 10, Shenkar College, Ramat Gan
2015, We Will See the Other Days, Gabirol Gallery, Tel Aviv
2015, Personal to the Bone, The House of Culture & Art, Nazareth
2015, Graduate Exhibition (MFA), University of Haifa, Haifa
2015, Similarly: Palestinian Artists Exhibition, Herzl–Lilienblum Museum, Tel Aviv; Hecht Museum, Haifa

2014, Bread and Roses 9, Kastiel As Is, Tel Aviv
2014, Galilee Paint 2, ORT School, Tiberias
2014, Combination, The House of Culture & Art, Nazareth
2014, Contact, Hecht Museum, Haifa
2014, Paper Work, Mofet Institute, Tel Aviv

2012, Low Tech, Wadi Gallery, Haifa
2012, Log In, Log Out, Beit Hagefen Gallery, Haifa
2012, Bread and Roses 7, Minshar School of Art, Tel Aviv
2012, Graduate Exhibition (B.Ed), Oranim College, Tivon

ART FAIRS

2024, Abu Dhabi Art, UAE
2024, Art Dubai, Dubai, UAE
2024, Art Rotterdam

AWARDS AND SCHOLARSHIPS

2025, Residency Kulturhaus Villa Strauli, Winterthur, Switzerland

2023, Residency scholarship in Berlin, Livingstone Project Berlin

2022, Excellency Award, Association for Women's Art and Gender Research

2018, Haim Shiff Prize for Figurative- Realistic Art

2018, Pais Culture Council Support in Exhibition and Catalogue
2016, Ismail Shammout Award in Fine Art

2015, Young Award, Ministry of Culture & Sport

2015, Excellency Award, Haifa University

2014, Promising Artists, Galilee Paint Art Fair

2013, Pais Culture Council Support in Exhibition and Catalogue

2012, Excellency Award, Oranim College

SELECTED PRESS

2021, Michael Halak and Samah Shihadi tell tales of their land through a hyperrealist lens, Stir World

2020, Artsy, Body Issues: Artists' Maps of the Human Body Reveal Our Desire for Immortality

2018, Positive Magazine, Hungry For Home: Interview

2018, Islamic Arts Magazine, Hungry for Home by the Palestinian Artist Samah Shihadi

COLLECTIONS

Kinda Foundation For Contemporary Arab Art, KSA

LACMA Collection, Los Angeles, US

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Works

Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Samah Shihadi, Landscape series, 2025. Charcoal on paper; 21 x 29.7 cm (8 1/4 x 11 3/4 in).

Samah Shihadi Palestinian, b. 1987

Landscape series, 2025

Charcoal on paper
21 x 29.7 cm
8 1/4 x 11 3/4 in

Exhibitions

Between Closeness and Loss - Familial Spaces of Memory in the Work of Samah Shihadi and Michael Halak
The exhibition In Between brings together two outstanding voices in contemporary Palestinian art: Samah Shihadi and Michael Halak, both artists negotiate the complex experiences of belonging, alienation and identity in their work. Family and the place of growing up repeatedly appear in their works as carriers of collective and individual memory. The result is a multi-layered narrative about geopolitical conflicts, landscape and the family as a personal archive. A narrative that is also conspicuous for its absences and gaps and in which the ghosts of memory and the creation of meaning appear again and again.
Samah Shihadi works primarily with detailed pencil drawings, drawing her inspiration from her family's experiences and traditions. The central role of landscapes has become deeply engraved in her memory and goes far beyond the realistic depiction of the landscape itself: here, landscape is symbolically and emotionally charged. Themes such as fragility, resistance and care repeatedly appear in her works. In many series, she draws on personal and family photographs in order to preserve, transform and question them in a graphic translation. Her visual worlds are characterised by female figures, moments of introspection and everyday objects that seem like fragile relics. For Shihadi, family is not only a source of origin, but also a bearer of silent resilience - it embodies care, tradition, vulnerability and strength at the same time. Her drawings are located on the threshold between visibility and what often disappears in collective narratives: the intimate, often unnoticed stories of women, mothers and daughters.
Michael Halak approaches the subject from a different perspective. At first glance, his realistic paintings of everyday objects look like sober still lifes. But their presence points to what is missing: to bodies, to voices, to the stories that are connected to things. Halak does not think of family as a visible community, but as a trace, as that which remains - or is no longer tangible. A sense of loss and alienation resonates in many of his works. The family space functions as a microcosm of a larger reality: migration, social insecurity, the fragile legacy of belonging.
The juxtaposition of Shihadi's graphic intimacy and Halak's painterly precision creates a dialogue space in which questions of representation, memory and political visibility are negotiated. Their works unfold a profound dialogue about family as a place of remembrance, resistance and transmission - but also as a space characterised by ruptures, omissions and uncertainties. Both artists do not paint an idealised picture of family belonging, but rather make visible how complex, ambivalent and politically charged it can be.
Shihadi and Halak deal with the tension between the individual and collective experience, between image and reality, between past and present. This exhibition therefore sees itself not only as a presentation of two unusual artistic positions, but also as an invitation to rethink the relationship between art, identity and resistance in a conflict-ridden world.

Literature

Landscape series, 2025 Charcoal on paper, 21 × 29.7 cm each

The Landscape series comprises intimate charcoal studies of the Galilee terrain by the Palestinian artist Samah Shihadi: abandoned stone houses with arched windows, a free-standing pointed arch, collapsed masonry, the foundations of buildings traced in the grass, olive groves bounded by dry stone terraces and a close study of an olive branch heavy with fruit. Devoid of people, the drawings dwell on traces of habitation, a subject bound up in Shihadi’s practice with the Palestinian villages depopulated in 1948, among them her family’s village of Mi’ar. Working on a small scale, Shihadi applies the hyperrealist precision of her monumental drawings, rendering every stone and blade of grass with the patience of an archivist. Ruin and growth, the arch and the olive, appear in the series as twin markers of loss and continuity.

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Exhibitions