Raed Issa is a contemporary visual artist born in the Al-Bureij refugee camp in Gaza in 1975. He holds a diploma in Computer Science from Al-Aqsa University in Gaza. He is the founder of the Fine Art Program of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Gaza and is a founding member of the first contemporary art collective, Eltiqa. Between 1999 and 2001, he participated in the Summer Academy at the Khalid Shoman Foundation under the supervision of the late Syrian artist Marwan Kassab Bachi.

In 2002, he won the Young Artist Award organized by the A. M. Qattan Foundation in Ramallah for his painting project “Bereavement.” In 2007, he joined an art residency in Geneva, where he held an exhibition at the invitation of the Geneva Municipality. In 2011, he was awarded a residency program at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. Issa’s art delves into themes of vulnerability, loss, and the grief of living under siege. His work has been exhibited in Palestine, Jordan, Switzerland, Japan, Tunisia, Dubai, Italy, Australia, Ireland, and at Documenta fifteen. Like in the 2014 war, the current brutal war on Gaza once again destroyed his home and studio, reducing them to rubble and ashes and causing him to lose everything, including his artwork and personal art collection.

He was displaced multiple times, moving from UNRWA schools in Gaza to Rafah in the south, then to Al-Mawasi, and finally to Deir al-Balah. Raed now lives with his family in a tent, which he transforms into a makeshift studio whenever possible. There, he conducts workshops with children and documents his daily life through drawings. Due to the scarcity of art supplies, he has resorted to using alternative materials such as tea, hibiscus, coffee, and charcoal. His figurative drawings capture suffering and memory, expressing waiting, anticipation, nostalgia, love, and exhaustion.