Ahmad Canaan

Ahmad Canaan was born in 1965 in Tamra

Ahmad Canaan was born in Tamra in 1965. His father, Mahmoud Muhi al-Din, was a carpenter, and his mother, Doria Labadi, came from Haifa. His father died when he was a small child, and his mother raised him and his 5 siblings alone.

He began high school at the Galim agricultural youth village and finished at Ironi Alef High School in Haifa, where he started painting and sculpting. In 1984 and 1985 he studied painting with the artist Khalil Rayan in Tamra. In 1985 he began studying at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, where he earned a BFA.

His first exhibition opened in 1989 at the al-Hakawati Theater in East Jerusalem. After his studies he worked for 5 years at a bronze foundry in Atarot. In 1994 he returned to Tamra with his wife and daughter and set up his home and studio there.

He taught sculpture in Tarshiha, Sakhnin and Nazareth and led public sculpture projects in Arab towns. In 2004 he founded the municipal art gallery in Tamra and was its curator until 2010, and in 2006 he opened the Canaan Gallery there. From 2010 to 2012 he curated the Jaffa Salon of Palestinian Art, which he helped found.

His work draws on Islamic art, local surroundings and old myths, and deals with Palestinian history and identity. It has been shown in Israel and abroad and is held in museums such as the Museum on the Seam and the Open Museum in Omer.