Biography


Bashir Makhoul is a Palestinian artist born (1963) in Galilee , Israel . He has been based in the United Kingdom for the past 18 years. During this time he has produced a body of work, based on repeated motifs which can be characterised by their power of aesthetic seduction. Once drawn into the work however, viewers find themselves engaged with something far more complicated than a beautiful pattern. Economics, nationalism, war and torture are frequently woven into the layers of Makhoul’s work and often the more explicit the material, the more seductive the surface.

Makhoul completed his PhD in 1995 at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK . He has exhibited his work widely in Britain and internationally, including the Hayward Gallery, London, Tate Liverpool, Harris Museum, Preston, Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, the Liverpool Biennial, The Herzilya Museum, Israel, Jordan National Museum, NCA Gallery Lahore Pakistan, the Florence Biennal, Haus am Lutzowplatz Berlin, UTS Gallery, Sydney, Australia, Elga Wimmer Gallery, New York, Changshu Art Museum, Suzhou Art Museum, Shenzhen Art Museum in China and many others.

He has received several prestigious awards from the Arts Council of Great Britain, the Arts Council England, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (A HR C), Sheffield Hallam University and North West Arts Board, amongst others.

He is the co-author of several books/publications including Identity Theft, published by Chicago and Liverpool Press; Return, published by Deebipublishing; Ibrahim Noubani, Outside the Camp, published by The Israel Museum, Tel Aviv; and Return in Conflict, published by Issueart New York .

He was the Head of Department of Art and Design and the Director of the Research Institute of Media, Art and Design at the University of Bedfordshire (previously Luton ). He was also the founding Head of School of Media Art and Design at the same University. He is currently the Head of one of the UK ’s leading art school, Winchester School of Art, part of the University of Southampton.