John Halaka: Passage Into Exile #1

John Halaka is an activist artist whose creative work serves as a vehicle for meditation on personal, cultural, and political concerns. He creates images that raise questions for himself, as well as for the viewer, about some of the pressing issues of our time. His experiences as an artist of Palestinian descent shape his pictorial investigations of cycles of repression and displacement, as well as the personal and political relationship between desire, denial, and instability. His recent work in both painting and documentary filmmaking investigates issues of identity construction from personal, familial, and political perspectives. He is a Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of San Diego, where he has taught since 1991. This piece of art was selected to be part of the "Justice Matters" exhibit, a joint project of the Middle East Children's Alliance, Alliance Graphics, and the Berkeley Arts Center. The collection was first exhibited in 2005 and includes the works of the following artists: Ayed Arafa, Jesus Barraza, Eric Drooker, Ala Ebtekar, John Halaka, Mildred Howard, Lisa Kokin, Rafik Majzoub, Toxqui Perez, Jackie Salloum, Josh Short, Christine Wong, Holly Wong, and Jos Sances. Print is 22" x 22"