Karim Abu Shakra

Karim Abu Shakra, born in Umm-al-Fahm, Palestine, and still living there, paints combined and transformed recurring images in ways that are vividly colourful and surreal, but sometimes disturbing. Animals, plants, and birds are layered and merged into new shapes unfolding across canvases. Abu Shakra’s style is eclectic, his bright acrylic canvases seeming to draw inspiration from variants of cubism and surrealism as well as from elements of the folk-art favoured by many of his Palestinian contemporaries, including his late uncle Assem Abu Shakra, named by the artist as a key influence. The artist newly experiments with pattern and paint, drawing from nature.