Samah Shihadi

Born in Sha`ab, Palestine in 1987. She graduated from Oranim College in 2012 with a BA in art and an MFA from Haifa University in 2015. Shihadi is a Haifa-based artist, she had solo exhibitions at the gallery of modern art gallery in Umm Al Fahem and Machanaim art gallery. In addition, her works have been exhibited in many galleries and art fair “Galilee Paint 2”, where she won promising artist. In addition, Shihadi won prizes and awards from Pais Culture Council, The Culture and Sports and Ismail Shammout award in fine art. Samah’s works are in important private collections in Israel and abroad. 

Sameh Shihadi captures the annual rituals in which whole families would take part – regularly – before their expulsion in 1948. The infamous national Palestinian symbol of the cactus is a reminder of both dispossession and survival. Cactus plants used to demark plots of land plots belonging to village residents. These unique hedgerows are often the only visible reminder of the many hundreds of villages that were destroyed and ethnically cleansed in 1948. Shihadi’s paintings often depict the elderly of the village engaging in the harvest, while children innocently play in the emptiness of the land. Her tranquil and dreamlike scenes are often underpinned by painful memories and ongoing family trauma.

LINK zawyeh gallery