Gaza artist turns waste into art
Palestinian artist Shareef Sarhan collects discarded items and transforms them into art to help reduce pollution in the Gaza Strip.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Several days a week, Palestinian artist Shareef Sarhan visits Gaza City’s factories and workshops to gather steel, aluminum, wood and other discarded materials. Most of these are found carelessly lying around, often threatening the environment.
Back in his small art workshop in Gaza City, with its table crowded with sets of colorful paints, the artist uses an aluminum hand drill to turn aluminum objects into brightly-painted Arabic letters that can be hung on the wall. The prices of artworks in his recent exhibition, “Letters and the City,” which was held in Ramallah last year, ranged between $1,500 and $5,000.
Sarhan, 40, is known as one of the most innovative artists in the Gaza Strip, where artists struggle to find drawing and painting materials. The father of four has been painting, sculpting, designing and taking photographs since 1998, and has freelanced as a photographer, mostly for international organizations.
Sarhan is a member of the Palestinian Artists Association and a founding member of the Shababek group, known abroad as the "Windows from Gaza for Contemporary Art." He has participated in several technical training courses in and outside Palestine and exhibited his works in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Amman, Britain, the United States, Spain, Sweden, Sharjah and Cairo.
