Rafat Asad

Rafat Asad is a Palestinian multidisciplinary artist born in Nablus in 1974 and currently living and working in Ramallah. A painter at his core, his practice extends across painting, light and sound installations, video, and performance.

Landscape is central to Asad’s work. Drawing from observation and memory, he collects and preserves visual impressions of the places around him, transforming them into minimalist paintings and installations. His process is rooted in reminiscence: “I paint what I see, I paint what I know.”

Asad’s landscapes are both personal and political. Through a restrained visual language, he explores memory, place, absence, and the ways in which occupation, barriers, and human intervention reshape the Palestinian landscape. His work seeks to reconnect with, and reflect upon, a landscape that is at once familiar, changing, and often inaccessible.

Asad is the co-founder and artistic director of Al-Mahatta Gallery and chair of the Board of Directors of the Balata Cultural Forum.