About the artist
Jumana Abd Al Rahman is a Palestinian mixed media artist, specializing in Indigenous Palestinian tattoo artistry and creative reuse.
Mirroring the story of many Palestinians in diaspora, the artists family was forcibly displaced as a result of the first Nakba, from their ancestral village of Rantis near Ramallah, then into Kuwait, and finally being subsequently displaced once more after the Gulf war, leaving their family stranded stateless in America after a visit to the artists father who had been studying abroad in Kingsville, Texas. The artist was born a few years later in the late 90’s in Austin, and with 2 generations of displacement and trauma passed down, the artists recalls an ever-present sense of feeling ‘lost’, without a true home.
Abd Al Rahman found their artistic inspiration early in life, through trying to cope through the hardships of their identity as a Palestinian displaced in an environment that stood in stark contrast to their roots. Never being perceived by their American peers as American enough, nor as Palestinian or Arab enough— forced into mental statelessness once more, the artist struggled to cope and make sense of the identities that were pushed onto them-- the pattern of cultural erasure and assimilation being persistent across generations. Abd Al Rahman alchemizes and transforms their pain and suffering into intricate, powerful and healing works of art.
The artists’ work with creative reuse is their form of resistance against the imperial and capitalist systems which seek to keep people oppressed, as well as complacent with the destruction of our environments to uphold the structures of exploitation and over consumption at the expense of minority marginalized peoples. Abd Al Rahman’s work with creative reuse reflects the artists passion for preserving and protecting our earth, being mindful of where we choose to spend our money and source for supplies in alignment and commitment with the BDS movement.
Since the ‘Israeli’ government began carrying out the full-scale genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, Abd Al Rahman has since fully immersed and dedicated themselves to the Palestinian cause for liberation through their artwork and activism. Their inspiration derives from the depths of their soul, through alchemizing trash and translating the complexities and pain of being Palestinian into other-wordly, captivating, as well as detailed works of mixed media art.