“Qnadeel” exhibition for Muhammad Al-Rakoui to  preserve Palestinian heritage

The Arab Cultural center, Abou Rumaneh in Damascus held on Sunday a solo exhibition for the prominent Palestinian artist Mohammad Al-Rakoui.

Plastic artist Muhammad Al-Rakoui displayed 30 paintings in an exhibition called Qanadeel “Lamps”. He has a different style in drawing . The  themes of his paintings, which are inspired from the local heritage, depicted Al-Quds, Al-Aqsa mosque, the Palestinian territories and environment.

Artist Muhammad Al-Rakoui, told Syria times : “I have my own style in drawing which I have  followed since I was detained in the Israeli occupation prisons for 13 years. In this exhibition, after 35 years of experience in painting, I  displayed paintings in a different style to revive and preserve the Palestinian heritage”.

  Artist Mohammad sees that in art, there is a painter who draws what he sees as an exact image, while the artist is the one who draws from his mind as he sees it in his imagination.

“I displayed in drawings   a group of people who are a symbol of people’s desire for liberation and protection, women  who express life, lamps which express light and optimism, beside local Palestinian fashions .I used different techniques to express my inner ideas. The painting  are a mixture of realism, expressionism, and abstraction” he added

“The colors are happy, but they express the sadness that hides behind the joy, and at the same time they express optimism” Muhammad Al-Rakoui said

The artist, Muhammad Al-Rakoui, was born in the Gaza Strip in 1950. He held his first art exhibition in Gaza in 1970. He worked as an art education teacher. He was arrested by the Israeli occupation authorities in 1973 for thirteen years until his liberation in a prisoner exchange in 1985.

He has several solo exhibitions inside and outside Syria, and many participations in  collective exhibitions.

Reported by: Nada Haj Khidr