Tayseer Barakat

Tayseer Barakat (; born 1959) is a Palestinian painter, curator, and writer. He also owns a gallery–cafe in Ramallah, where he lives. Barakat was one of the founding members of the League of Palestinian Artists in 1973, and the New Vision art group and movement during the First Intifada.

Early life and education Tayseer Barakat was born in 1959, in the Jabalia refugee camp near Jabalia in the Gaza Strip. His family was from al-Majdal, a village in the Lower Galilee region. As a young adult he moved to the West Bank. Much of his artwork depicts images of flight or escape.

Barakat was one of the founding members of the League of Palestinian Artists art collective in 1973, the other founding artists included Karim Dabbah, Taysir Sharaf, Nabil Anani, Kamel Mughanni, Vera Tamari, Fathi Ghabin, Issam Badr, Suleiman Mansour, Fatin Tubasi, Samira Badran, and Yusuf Duwayk. The group wanted to created Palestinian visual art on native land. As a group they had pledge to make art with naturally found materials, in order to divest from spending money on Israeli art supplies. During this period Barakat began to work with materials such as local clay (and he added hay for consistency), wood and fire.

Barakat founded in 1997 the Ziryab Gallery and Cafe in Ramallah, where he also worked as an art curator. and the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts in Amman.

Exhibitions

1996, 23rd São Paulo Art Biennial, group exhibition, São Paulo, Brazil 2005, Made in Palestine!, traveling group exhibition, SomArts Cultural Center, San Francisco, California, U.S. 2015, Narratives, at Zawyeh Gallery Ramallah; group exhibition featuring artists Abed Alem, Ahmad Kanaan, Amani Harhash, Asad Azzi, Irina Naji, Jawad Malhi, Marwa Najjar, Maisara Barood, Mohammad Khalil, Nabil Anani, Sana Bishara, Sliman Mansour, and Tayseer Barakat