Biography
Abdul Hay Mosallam Zarara was a self-taught artist who dedicated his creations to serve as documentation and a catalog of political events related to the Palestinian revolt. His work features depictions of freedom fighters, displacement, aggressions against civilians, imprisonment, traditional village gatherings, interactions between a man who loves a woman or is forced to leave her, and depictions of a woman's beauty, strength, or solidarity. Each piece was signed with his first name—how he was commonly addressed—rather than his last name. Abdul Hay Mosallam began to add ‘Zarara’ to his family name around 2006.
Abdul Hay was born in 1933 in Al-Dawaymeh, west of Hebron, in Mandate Palestine. His father passed away when Abdul Hay was five years old. He grew up with his mother and five sisters, supporting their family through farming and running an olive press at home. In The House of Abdul Hay’s Mother (1990), he depicted himself as the young boy on a pomegranate tree watching the village women's gatherings at his mother’s house from a distance. He attended wedding celebrations where brides were carried on camels and spent time at the men's madafa (social club), where he picked up the ethics and politics of social gatherings. He later depicted these events in his Heritage series, including the singing and dancing in The Traditional Al Samer Dance (1990) and Fasting Ramadan (2002).
His immersive experience in the village kept many of the traditional and revolutionary songs and phrases related to anguish and longing vivid in his memory. Decades later, he recalled these lines and inscribed them on the edges of his artworks.
His memories of the revolutionary events of 1936 and 1939 against the British Mandate Army and the retaliations he witnessed against his people were revived when Zionist militias attacked Palestinian villages, including Dawaymeh, during the Nakba. On Friday, 28 October 1948, two massacres were committed by Zionist militias against a few hundred of his neighbours. The residents fled to nearby villages, unable to return to their homes; they moved to live in the refugee camps set up in the region.
Abdul Hay's family left for Jericho and Al' Arroub Camp near Hebron. His family, particularly his wife Rasmieh Ali Abu Hussein, played a significant role in supporting his artistic pursuits. He married Rasmieh in 1951. He moved to Ein es-Sultan Camp near Jericho, where he worked with a British archaeological excavation team. This experience later helped him enlist in the Jordanian Air Force in 1955 as an electrician.
Following the violent events of Black September in 1970, Abdul Hay left the Jordanian Army to join the Palestinian Fatah’s relocation from Amman to Damascus. In 1971, Fatah sent him to Libya, where his wife and children joined him.
Frustrated with being too far from the battlefront, Abdul Hay began creating constellations that depicted rifles and freedom fighters, molding them from a mixture of sawdust and glue, which he painted after they dried. He was advised to show his works in the Palestinian pavilion at the Tripoli International Fair in 1972. With the help of the Tripoli branch of the General Union of Palestinian Students, he organised his first two solo exhibitions in Libya in 1978. Journalists reacted with interest to the exhibitions of the self-taught Abdul Hay.
In 1979, Abdul Hay was invited to the second general exhibition of the Union of Palestinian Artists in Beirut, where he met other Palestinian artists, including his future close friend Mustafa Al Hallaj (1938–2002). That same year, Abdul Hay returned to Damascus with his family and settled in the Yarmouk Camp. The artist divided his time between his studio and the Fatah Art Department in Beirut, where Abdul Hay worked with Al Hallaj and Mona Saudi (1945-2022). With Al Hallaj, Abdul Hay directed the Naji Al Ali Fine Arts Gallery in Damascus from 1982 to 1991, a tenure of almost a decade.
Abdul Hay dedicated his time to his art, turning military training in Zagreb into a production and exhibition opportunity. There, he challenged a woman's claim about the origin of a Palestinian dress she received from an Israeli merchant in Jerusalem. This incident evoked memories of his village, and upon his return, he committed himself to document vibrant embroidery patterns and colourful rural traditions in Palestine before 1948.
A pivotal moment in Abdul Hay's artistic journey occurred during the Israeli Army's siege of Beirut in 1982. This event, which marked a significant turning point in the Palestinian struggle, had a profound impact on Abdul Hay. He set up a working station on Fakahani Street, producing 14 works on the bombardments of the three-month siege. Prominent figures such as Yasser Arafat and journalists visited to see his work. He and his artworks boarded the ships that deported the Palestinian fighters to Tunis, and a few months later, he returned with his Beirut Siege series (1982) to Damascus.
Abdul Hay added to the series new works such as Exodus from Beirut to the Sea (1983), a series that depicted the harrowing journey of the Palestinian people from Beirut to the sea during the siege. He showed them across Syrian towns and in Gothenburg, Helsinki, and Stockholm in 1983. The artist depicted significant events such as the assassination of Naji Al-Ali and the outbreak of the Intifada in 1987. He produced an extensive collection on comradery struggle movements in Ireland, Latin America, and South Africa. A notable work from this series is The Execution of the Poet Benjamin Moloise (1985). He depicted the political activist and poet as a crucified dove, its wings extending over rural African architecture.
In his beginnings, Abdul Hay could only ever create one freedom fighter figure. Later, he experimented with sawdust paste to create reliefs on top of a photograph, and this discovery marked a significant shift in his artistic medium and technique. Among the notable works of this period are Savoy Operation (1976) and Tyre, The Fort of Steadfastness (1976), in which Abdul Hay created expressive compositions choreographing fighters' bodies and rifles on top of maps, as well as flying keffiyehs. This exploration of painted relief sculptures and his active engagement with the art community through group exhibitions brought criticism from peers regarding the principles of paint. The feedback led him to restrain his colour palette at times, most notably in his Beirut Siege series, such as Demolishing the Akar Building (1982). He produced some of the folkloric Palestinian customs and traditions in duotones but later returned to color them in full, as exemplified by The Bride's Henna (1995).
He moved back to Amman in 1992 and worked to transport his 400 works from Yarmouk Camp to his studio in Jabal Al Qusur. In Amman, he produced Rachel Corrie's A Dove from America in Rafah (2003), Mahfoudha’s Olive (2006), and Holocaust in Gaza (2009), among other works, citing the steadfastness of women in the face of Israeli aggressions.
He remained in Amman until his death on 1 August 2020.
