Malak Mattar

Malak Mattar (Gaza City, born 17 December 1999) is a Palestinian painter, illustrator and children's book author. Her work has been shown in many countries and has become one of the best-known visual responses to the Gaza war.

Mattar began painting in 2014, during that year's Gaza war, as a way to process her emotions. She started with watercolours on plain paper, and her mother later bought her acrylic paints and canvases. She was mentored by her uncle, the Gazan painter Mohammed Musallam. She shared her art on Instagram, which led to online sales, and by age 14 she had her first gallery opening in Gaza. In 2016 her work was shown at the Palestine Museum in Bristol, though she could not attend because her visa was refused; in 2019 it appeared at the Palestine Museum in Connecticut. In 2021 she wrote and illustrated the children's book Grandma's Bird. In 2023 she had a solo show at Garden Court Chambers in London, the first Palestinian artist to exhibit there.

After the war began in 2023, painting became painful rather than cathartic for her. In January 2024 she started a painting over two metres tall, first called "Last Breath" and later "No Words", which has been compared to Picasso's Guernica. In April 2024 she held the solo show "The Horse Fell off the Poem" at the Ferruzzi Gallery in Venice, timed with the Venice Biennale, and in May "Screams" opened in Scotland. Her expressionist style has been compared to Picasso and Matisse, and she cites Frida Kahlo as an inspiration. She often depicts women and uses birds, especially doves, as symbols of freedom. Since October 2023 she has worked mainly in white, black and grey.