Abdelrahman Al Muzayen

Abdelrahman Al Muzayen was born in 1943, in Qubayba, a village in the Ramle subdistrict in Palestine. After the 1948 Nakba, his family was forced to leave their hometown and move to Khan Younis Refugee camps in Gaza. In 1961, he completed his secondary schooling at Khan Younis School for boys. Al Muzayen pursued his art education in Egypt, earning a BA in 1966, and an MA in 1975 from the College of Fine Arts at Helwan University, Alexandria.

He co-founded the General Union of Palestinian Plastic Artists in 1970 and led the National Union of Arab Plastic Artists. In 1980, he established Al-Ard Artists Group and later formed the Studio of Revolutionary Artists of Damascus with Mustafa El Hallaj.

A visual artist, writer, and researcher, Al Muzayen completed his Ph.D. in Archaeology and History from Khartoum University, Sudan, in 1993. He wrote books on Palestinian cultural heritage and taught at Al-Aqsa University. Al Muzayen served as Colonel in the Palestinian Police from 1996 till 2005.

Al Muzayen is an artist, activist, and militant. Beyond territorial occupation, he realized early on that the Zionist project could conceivably lead to the cultural devastation of Palestine. While in college he created murals expressing dramatic historical events such as Ahl El Kahf, 1965 and The Massacre of Deir Yassine,1966 condemning the brutal manslaughter in Deir Yassine during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. In 1967, Al Muzayen joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Beirut.

He worked closely with Abu Jihad, Yasser Arafat’s deputy and head of the PLO’s media and civic organizations. Al Muzayen gave guidance to the Palestinian National Liberation Army through cultural events, and lectures to fighters on Palestinian cultural heritage and history.

Instead of addressing Palestinians as victims, Al Muzayen’s paintings and posters spoke of steadfastness. In most of his early works, he celebrated militancy and martyrdom deploying national iconography in surreal settings. An artistic trend that was later termed by Samia Halaby as Liberation Art.

Al-Karama, 1968 commemorated the PLO and Jordanian victory over the Israelis in the battle of Al-Karama. Rich in symbolism, the poster includes the colors of the Palestinian flag and features the image of three resistance fighters in Keffiyeh, the iconic Palestinian headdress. Indeed Al-Muzayen used posters as an artist propagandist medium.

Al Muzayen’s artistic productions were a form of cultural heritage survival. Reflecting on the pre-Nakba period, he portrayed a village boy dressed in a galabia with a keffiyeh on his shoulders holding a basket of oranges. Influenced by his mother, a trained embroiderer, Al-Muzayen mastered the depiction of an embroidered traditional dress (thobe) adorned by a Palestinian village woman in one of his half-length portraits, in 1977.

Her brown skin and near visible black hair stand in contrast to the white veil left on her head. Bringing life to a once forgotten and neglected craft, the detail-oriented artist painted, with oil on canvas, intricate geometric and abstract patterns on the chest panel of the dress (al-Qabba). He festooned floral motifs on its shoulder piece (al-Radda), and its two narrow long sleeves revealing the tactile qualities of stitching and couching laid across the surface of the white linen fabric.

Al-Muzayen was particular about the historical evolution of this craft. He selected a design applied by women before the Nakba inspired by the flora of their land. The choice of fabric, patterns, and vibrant colors identify the regional distinction of the woman and reveal her social and economic status. The woman’s folkloric costume was complimented with symbolic jewelry, such as the snake bracelet and a pair of eight-pointed star earrings significant of the star of Bethlehem.

The Palestinian woman was central in Al Muzayen’s work: she represented the motherland, freedom, and beauty. In Palestine,1978, he painted a monumental female figure in an embroidered thobe holding workers on her shoulders. Drawn from the figurines of the Canaanite goddess Ishtar, her conical headpiece is altered into the golden Dome of the Rock. As such, Al- Muzayen asserts that his people are the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of the region. Reminiscent of socialist realism art, this painting was printed as a poster on labors day, May first, 1979, with a slogan in Arabic that says: “the revolution is a rifle and a worker’s fist”.

After the expulsion of the PLO from Beirut to Tunisia in 1982, Al-Muzayen supervised the Palestinian Cultural and Artistic program in Africa until 1994. Noting his surrounding, he created a series of portraits in 1987, imaging Yemeni workers and actors assuming the role of soldiers. Meticulously crafted with colored pastel on black Canson paper, the drawings featured head and shoulder accessories distinctive of each character. Al-Muzayen continued delivering educational lectures to PLO fighters in the African diaspora and organized exhibitions to promote Palestinian art and cultural heritage.

On April 9, 1992, during one of his appointed lectures in a training camp at As-Sarra in southern Libya, Al-Muzayen was informed that Yasser Arafat’s private airplane crash-landed in a sandstorm. He led a military in search for Arafat. Following birds known as swallows, which usually feed on flies and hence dead bodies, the soldiers were able to identify the location of the plane and rescue Arafat who had miraculously escaped death. That same year, Yasser Arafat awarded Al-Muzayen the military duty badge of honor for rescuing him.

Following the Oslo I accord, Al-Muzayen returned to his homeland with the PLO, which later became part of the Palestinian Authority (PA). He was disappointed to see women replace the traditional embroidered dress with western clothing. Merging embroidery, mythology, and popular culture, he started a series of murals of visual narratives, each comprising a number of drawings executed in black china ink on white Canson paper.

He created eighty drawings depicting the first intifada under the title Anat and the Intifada, 2000-2003, inspired by the ancient goddess of war and fertility. Within linear forms and patterns, it illustrates children and women fighting with slingshots and stones. The fourteen drawings in The Jar Holders, 2006 narrate the long-lived tradition of girls filling water from wells. Reminiscent of Egyptian art, it features stylized female figures, fashioned in traditional costumes, holding jars on their heads. They walk in groups toward the wells, a place to socialize and perhaps meet their future spouses.

Targeting an international audience, Al-Muzayen deployed a contemporized symbolic style. Onto his stylized costumes, he applied abstracted motifs of birds, arches, palm trees and wheat kernels. He accessorized his female figures with earrings, and bracelets that bear simplified symbols of keys, doves, palm trees, or roses. Calligraphic texts along with grids and zigzag patterns, drawn from the keffiyeh, complimented his figures.

Still, Al-Muzayen preaches for peace and freedom. He documents the recent horrific events of his country, as ones of victory and steadfastness. In Beit Hanoun,2007 mural he proudly demonstrates the march of women towards al-Nasir mosque to rescue fighters on November 2nd, 2006. Illustrated with raised hands, they hold farming tools, keys, and roses. His latest works during 2012-2014 include vibrant paintings with stylized figures similar to those in the murals, executed with acrylic on canvas. They reflect maturity both in style and context attained – a mastery in composition and elegance in color.

Al-Muzayen retired as General in the Palestinian Police in 2006. He resides in Ramallah, Palestine.

Written by Wafa Roz © Dalloul Art Foundation