Name: Mohammed Joha

Joha was born in Gaza -Palestine in 1978 and currently lives and works between Paris and Italy. He graduated in Art Education from Al-Aqsa University inGaza in 2003. same year he participated in a workshop residency in Darat Al Funun, Khalid Shoman Foundation in Amman-Jordan, supervised by artist Marwan Kassab Bacchi. In 2004, he was the winner of the A. M. Qattan Foundation s «Hassan Al Hourani Young Artist Award», when he was elected Artist of the Year 2004. This allowed him to reside in the “Cité Internationale des Arts” in Paris in 2005 - 2008 and 2017/18 , where he develops and strengthens his artistic personality. Besides being selected for international workshops and residencies, he has participated in exhibitions worldwide. Joha has been working in the field of painting and has gathered a remarkable artistic experience. He is one of the most interesting artists from Gaza-Palestine, who stands out by a very elaborate personal style of painting, a masterly combination of various artistic elements in his compositions, and most sophisticated messages. Through mixed techniques of painting, collages, installation, together with a most spontaneous, expressive style, much of his work has explored the questions and conditions of childhood and the loss of innocence and freedom experienced by generations of children in Palestine.

‏The overcoming of physical and psychological barriers imposed by conflict; revolutionary social and political events; resilience and identity are recurrent themes. The closer his works are examined, the more complex they become, in texture, content, and narrative. These multilayered, transformed representations of reality leave room for imagination and interpretation, because they are inspired by universal values and reflect the memory of a collective entity, without being bound to cultural restrictions or temporary or lodcal individualistic gestures.