Asad Azi

Asad Azi was born in Shafa Amr in the Galilee, in 1955, to a Druze family. He studied Fine Arts at the University of Haifa as well as at the Beit Berl Academic College. Azi embraced poetry and sculpture in his early career: he published three books of poetry in the 1970s and created figurative sculptures influenced by the art of the Near East. After finishing his studies, he went to study in Carrara, Italy, and later to Nigeria.

Azi contributed to the development of culture though the creation of the group Rega (Moment) and the implementation of the first festival of the Center for the Palestinian Heritage in Taibe. Azi is currently teaching art in various institutes and has been given numerous awards and prizes over the years. He has participated in more than 150 group and solo exhibitions worldwide. 

He lives and works in Yafa.

Blending cultural and historical references, media and techniques, Azi’s intricate works reflect a search for his own identity, as well as that of his community. At the same time, he advocates a humanistic and universal culture. Azi chose to expand the span of his work by allying the West to his own culture.  The result is a complex and intense body of work that blends references, media and techniques, where every line and shape has meaning. In his intricate, richly colored and multi-layered works, Azi investigates the mundane and the dramatic, the secular and the sacred. Using traces from the past, like photographs and objects, the artist reveals the forgotten history of people and places. Azi’s works are sometimes presented in pairs, regardless of their date of creation. The works dialogue with one another, addressing questions and references, pointing the viewer to the multiple layers and references. While initially they have a pleasant, almost decorative appearance, the artist in fact juxtaposes Middle Eastern and European references and patterns to tell us significant stories that ultimately relate to universal issues: identity, love, death, spirituality.