Artist: Kamal Boullata
Title: Illumination II
Year: 2001
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: 120 × 120 cm
Courtesy: Ali and Rafia Malas Private Collection

Illumination II, 2001

Kamal Boullata

Kamal Boullata (Jerusalem 1942–Berlin 2019) is a painter and writer. Following Israel’s 1967 Six-Day War and the annexation of Jerusalem, he was denied the right to return from Lebanon to his city of birth on the grounds that he was outside the country before the city’s fall. In the last five decades he has lived in the USA (1968–92), Morocco (1993–96), France (1997–2012), and Germany (2013–2019).

● Patron

Ali and Rafia Malas

Rafia Koudmani Malas is considered an expert on Syrian contemporary art. With a vast personal collection of artworks dating from the 1960s, her love of art started when Ali, her husband, purchased their first collection piece in 1992. She holds a Master’s degree in curation from the Zurich University of the Art, and was a speaker at Sultan Al Qasimi’s Majlis. Rafia owned a gallery in Damascus, which unfortunately shut down in 2011.