Ahmed Hmeedat: The Palestinian Artist Behind the Palbox Ramadan Postcard

Drawing Churches While Living in a Camp

Ahmed attended school in the camp, surrounded by stories of displacement that every family carried. But when he moved to Bethlehem for high school, something shifted.

"Leaving the camp each day to study in Bethlehem left a profound mark on my artistic identity."
— Ahmed Hmeedat

The Church of the Nativity became a source of inspiration. He sketched arches, columns, statues of saints including Saint George, ancient doors, and sacred spaces. He visited Solomon's Pools, drawing the reservoirs while imagining the hands that built them. The old souq, the mosques, the churches, all of it shaped his visual language.

Bethlehem, for Ahmed, became both inheritance and contradiction: a sacred city globally celebrated, yet constrained daily by occupation. That tension between spirituality and restriction would later influence his artistic perspective.

An Unexpected Degree, An Unexpected Path

Ahmed once dreamed of studying in Damascus, but financial limitations and the absence of a scholarship made that impossible. Instead, his mother submitted a university application for him, and by coincidence he enrolled at Al-Quds University, studying International Law and Human Rights.

"It was accidental," Ahmed says. "But I stayed."

While formally studying international law, Ahmed regularly attended art courses in a non-official way through friends in the Fine Arts department. He sat in on classes, listened to professors, practiced drawing, and absorbed techniques. Though he never formally specialized in art, this consistent engagement deeply developed his artistic foundation.

"I realized both fields require the same depth. Law demands that you stay informed, reading human rights reports, following international court decisions, and understanding legal theory. Art also demands practice, awareness, reading, observation. Both are forms of witnessing."
— Ahmed Hmeedat

Building Art Across Borders

After completing his degree, Ahmed pursued his master's in law at Syracuse University in the United States. Even there, art remained present. He attended life drawing sessions, strengthening his understanding of anatomy and the human figure, and facilitated a workshop at a local exhibition.

Later in Washington, D.C., Ahmed worked with a human rights organization while contributing to the early traveling exhibitions of the Palestinian Museum in the United States. Eventually, the museum secured a permanent location. In 2019, Ahmed exhibited four paintings at the museum's official opening.

"I learned how to fundraise, how to present art, how to speak about it in institutional spaces. It strengthened my Palestinian identity."
— Ahmed Hmeedat

COVID, Silence, and the Birth of Blue

Searching for the Blue series, Ahmed Hmeedat. View full gallery at artists-consortium.com

After returning to Palestine, Ahmed stopped painting for nearly two years. Then COVID arrived. During lockdown, he found himself at home with little besides paints, brushes, and paper. Blue happened to be the color he had available at hand during that time.

"I had nothing else," he says. "So I painted."

That is how the series Searching for the Blue began, dozens of portraits painted directly with the brush, without pencil guidelines, often completed within 45 minutes.

"The human face fascinates me. It carries meaning and expression. Painting faces requires understanding anatomy, skull structure, muscles, light, shadow. It took me years to reach a level where I could improvise directly with paint."
— Ahmed Hmeedat

Blue carried emotional weight. Ahmed references Picasso's Blue Period and American blues music as examples of how blue historically represents melancholy. But during COVID, blue was also simply what was available, the material reality of that moment. The series was later exhibited in an American magazine and in local galleries.

What It Means to Create Under Occupation

Ahmed believes Palestinian art is inherently political, even when it is not explicitly about politics.

"Even if a Palestinian artist creates something purely aesthetic, it is political. Because it proves that we exist. That we produce culture."
— Ahmed Hmeedat

Ahmed painted murals in Dheisheh Camp commemorating Palestinians killed by Israeli forces, including Iyad Hallaq and George Floyd. These works carried emotional weight and risk. Movement restrictions, economic hardship, limited access to materials, and instability affect artists daily. Traveling for exhibitions requires permits that may not be granted. Recognition becomes complicated when your country itself is questioned internationally.

Yet Ahmed insists that Palestinian artists remain deeply creative. "We work in very difficult conditions. We do not have the freedom other artists have. But we continue to produce work that stands beside any other."

For Ahmed, art is not a luxury. It is documentation.

"No civilization is remembered without its art. We are living through a very difficult historical moment. Palestinians are facing genocide, the most intense and explicit we've ever experienced. Art documents that. It says we are here."
— Ahmed Hmeedat

Building the Palestinian Artists Consortium

Occupation thrives on isolation. It walls you in, literally and figuratively, and tells you you're alone. So he did what Palestinians have always done: he built a table big enough for everyone.

The Palestinian Artists Consortium started with a simple observation: individual artist websites don't get much traffic. But a collective platform amplifies voices.

"We created the consortium because Palestinian artists need professional visibility. We need portfolios we can send to galleries, museums, and collectors. We need to market our work and actually make a living so we can continue creating."
— Ahmed Hmeedat

Currently featuring twelve Palestinian artists, the platform serves as both showcase and statement. "There's nothing like this in Palestine," he notes. "This platform tells the international art world: we're here, our work matters, and it's just as valuable as work produced in freedom."

A Ramadan in Black and White

The Ramadan postcard included in this season's Palbox, illustrated by Ahmed Hmeedat.

When asked to create a Ramadan postcard for Palbox, he did not begin immediately. "I sit with the idea for days," Ahmed says. "I imagine it before sketching."

After several evenings of reflection, the final image emerged: a crescent, a lantern, a mosque dome, and the separation wall. Rendered in black and white.

"In Bethlehem, Ramadan should feel like Christmas here, festive, spiritual, communal. But this year feels heavy. The economy is struggling. Many young people are leaving. The city feels restricted."
— Ahmed Hmeedat

Black and white felt honest. Though Ahmed often works in blue, he explains that blue also carries sadness historically. In this case, black and white captured the emotional reality more clearly.

"The lantern still glows. The crescent still rises. But the wall is always there."
— Ahmed Hmeedat

Why Platforms Like Palbox Matter

When Ahmed learned the postcard would travel inside Palbox to diaspora Palestinians and supporters worldwide, it carried meaning. "Support for Palestinian artists is not charity," he says. "It is an acknowledgment." Visibility builds sustainability. It allows artists to continue producing, and it connects audiences to lived realities beyond headlines.

Ahmed hopes more Palestinian artists will be featured in future editions, expanding representation and diversity.

A Dream for Palestinian Art

When asked about his hopes for the future of Palestinian art, he doesn't hesitate. Ahmed hopes Palestinian art will expand across disciplines, from sculpture to architecture to performance, while developing a distinct visual identity recognizable without explanation.

"Art is neutral. It can be used for good or for bad propaganda. I hope Palestinian art serves dignity, memory, and truth."
— Ahmed Hmeedat

He believes Palestinian artists are capable of building that identity. And this Ramadan, that vision travels in a small black and white postcard that reads: Ramadan Kareem from Palestine.