DNA

Sohail Salem Born in Gaza in 1974, Sohail Salem is a visual artist based in Gaza. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts from Al-Aqsa University↗ in 1999, where he later taught art for a year. He is a co-founder of the Eltiqa’ Group for Contemporary Arts. Sohail has participated in various residency programs, including the Summer Art Academy at Darat Al Funun, Khalid Shoman Foundation in Amman, under the supervision of the late artist Marwan Qassab Bachi in 2001 and 2003. He also completed residencies at Arts Place de l'Ile in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2005, and at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France, in 2010. Suhail’s artistic practice encompasses design, installation art, sculpture, photography, and graphic design, with a focus on capturing nature and human activities.

In addition to his four solo exhibitions, Sohail has participated in many group exhibitions in Palestine and abroad. In a group exhibition titled Tales in 2021, Salem stated in his presentation that he intentionally distorts and manipulates forms to reflect personal and human inner tension. He adds: "I try to free myself from the scene to move towards a purely human vision, but I find myself captive to another scene and another idea that cannot be separated from the reality we live in… heading towards the unknown with an inability to foresee a more optimistic reality."

Despite losing large number of artworks, and still through the many stages of displacement he experienced during the war on Gaza, Sohail Salem continues to assert his presence through his drawings, crafted with fine, sharp lines on whatever sketchbook or school notebook paper he can find. These scenes impose themselves on him, compelling him to document them with all the pain and harshness often visible on the faces of his subjects. Yet, these works are not without signs of hope and life.