Amer Shomali
Irony and Revolution
Shomali was born in Kuwait to a family originally from Beit Sahour, a Palestinian city east of Bethlehem. He is a Palestinian interdisciplinary visual artist who uses conceptual art, painting, digital media, film, and comics to explore Palestinian sociopolitical issues and the iconography of revolution. He situates contemporary visual culture in relation to sociopolitical change. Shomali uses irony and humour to critically narrate Palestine. Since 2023, he has been the new Director General of the Palestinian Museum.
His academic background in architecture and animation coupled with a feverish interest in increasing knowledge of the Palestinian cultural heritage. His work investigates cultural and political transformations through a visual language that is at once critical, ironic, and deeply rooted in Palestinian history and identity.
Shomali uses irony and humour as tools for political storytelling, subverting stereotypes and challenging dominant narratives. His art is never mere aesthetics: it is a form of cultural resistance that evokes the memory of revolution and the struggle for self-determination. As he stated in an interview, “Irony is my weapon to confront the absurdity of the occupation and daily violence. It’s a way to tell the truth with lightness, but without compromise.”
In 2023 he was appointed Director General of the Palestinian Museum, a role that allows him to combine his artistic practice with an institutional commitment to promoting Palestinian culture globally. In this context, Shomali works to expand the space for expression and dialogue, advancing a project that is also political — namely, the reassertion of an identity that is often silenced. His art centers on daily life under occupation, but also on the capacity to imagine a different future, freed from injustices and divisions. “Art is a space of freedom where I can tell stories that would otherwise be ignored or distorted,” he affirms.
Among his most well-known works are films and comics that reinterpret icons of Palestinian resistance with a contemporary and provocative gaze, inviting the viewer to reflect on the power of images and the construction of historical narratives. Amer Shomali thus represents an essential voice in contemporary Palestinian art, capable of transforming political testimony into a creative, ironic, and passionate act that speaks not only of pain but also of hope and rebirth.
© Elettra Stamboulis
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