Palestinian-American artist, Jason Alghussein, grew up on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawai‘i, and had a unique upbringing consisting of a fusion of cultural influences between the Polynesian, Western and Arab worlds, traveling between Honolulu, Hawai‘i where his mother lived, and flying across oceans and continents to visit his father, Khaled, who resided in Cairo, Egypt.
The grief of his father’s passing on Jason’s twenty-first birthday prompted him to learn more deeply about the tale of his father’s childhood—being born into a politically influential and prominent landowning Palestinian family, who became homeless refugees amid the war and conflict, in what is known in Palestinian history as the “Nakba” or “Catastrophe” in Arabic.
His work provides valuable social commentary and perspective on today’s geopolitical and social issues and explores the beauty and culture amid the war, conflict, displacement and dispossession, and genocide of the Palestinian people.
