You're cordially invited to an exclusive evening with Malak Matter at the Palestine Museum US. The event features a solo exhibit of 20 paintings of Malak's recent art work. Malak will discuss her work and share her experiences growing up and living in Gaza.
This is a unique opportunity to meet Malak Matter and purchase her original art and select signed high resolution prints.
Light refreshments will be served.
Ticket proceeds will go to support programming and operations of the Palestine Museum US in Woodbridge, Connecticut.
We look forward to seeing you there!
About Malak Mattar
Malak Mattar, age 19, is an artist of startling originality from the Gaza Strip who paints powerfully expressionist faces, figures, and semi abstract designs. She first started painting at age 13. During the 51 day Israeli military assault on Gaza in 2014. Forced to stay inside for her own safety, she felt a compelling need to release all of her negative energy ---fear, anxiety and sheer terror. She started painting with art supplies from her school, basic watercolor on paper. This opened up a world of self-expression for her. Mattar produced over 300 paintings.
Unable to leave Gaza due to restrictions of the Israeli occupation, Mattar showed her paintings to the world via social media, on Instagram and Facebook. On her fourteenth birthday, she began offering her originals for sale to buyers around the world. Within two years, she became financially independent. Mattar’s artwork quickly began to garner interest from galleries beyond Palestine; her artwork has been featured in more than 40 individual and group exhibitions in Jerusalem, France, Spain, Costa Rica, India, England, 11 states in the US and Art Under Siege exhibit held in Rayburn House Office building, US House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
While developing her artistic talent, Malak Mattar has also excelled academically, achieving the highest grade point average in the Gaza strip in 2017, her senior year of high school, and the second highest grade average in all Palestine that same year amongst thousands students in West Bank and Gaza.
One of Malaks paintings features a woman with an ocean-blue face and a meditative expression, her profile emerging, like the dark side of the moon, from an orange planet. The whorl of her curly hair encircle the planet. with some curls breaking free to float in space. It is one of the most famous painting of Malak as it is a cover of the book “We Are Not Numbers” along with other 15 artwork with stories in the book that was written in German. Malak will have a reading tour this year and an art exhibit in few cities in Germany.
The motifs of her paintings range from visceral feelings to dream visions to abstract concepts—one painting is called “fear” another The flutter of Hope” to portraits of Ahad Tamimi, Frida Kahlo, and other well known Palestinian figures. Some of her paintings are dedicated for Syrian and Palestinian kids. Mattar childhood under three aggressions on Gaza has made her paintings focus on the humanitarian side of life. “every human being should be able to live in peace no matter where their origins are, the only victims are the kids, if they survive wars, they will have to survive living after wars”
Malak Mattar paints in acrylic and oil on canvas, and is currently living in Istanbul where she studies in Istanbul Aydin university on part scholarship. Malak was able to get the visa to France for the first time after rejecting her visas to Europe, she had few exhibitions in 4 cities including Paris. Malak strives to be an artist and ambassador for her people in the West.