Tayseer Barakat

Tayseer Barakat (b. 1959, Gaza, Palestine) is a Palestinian painter based in Ramallah. He works mainly in paint, inks and dyes on canvas, paper, cardboard, wood and textile, and has also worked with metal and glass. His paintings set cave-like figures and animals beside boats, landscapes and silhouettes of war machinery, often in dark, limited colours.

Barakat was born in Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza and studied fine art in Egypt before settling in Ramallah. During the first Intifada he was part of the New Vision movement. Its artists boycotted Israeli products and used natural materials such as straw, mud and plant-based dyes. Gaza: Recalling the Collage of a Place (2024) showed collages, prints and ink works about Gaza made between his graduation and 2005. Shoreless Sea (2021) followed refugees crossing the Mediterranean, and Spiritual Path (2021) turned to dreamlike landscapes.

His solo exhibitions include Distant Voices at Zawyeh Gallery, Ramallah (2014) and Spiritual Path at Zawyeh Gallery, Dubai (2021). The Disappeared followed at the Palestinian Museum, Birzeit (2024). Group exhibitions include Seven Palestinian Artists at Darat al Funun, Amman (1992). He also showed with Nabil Anani and Sliman Mansour in Art Palestine at Meem Gallery, Dubai (2011).