The Lost Paintings Gallery Talk
A panel discussion with The Lost Paintings curators, Rula Khoury, Joëlle Tomb and Haidi Motola and participating artists, Aya Abu Hawash, Faissal El-Malak, and Antoine Raffoul.
SPEAKERS:
Artists:
Faissal El-Malak
Faissal El-Malak is a Palestinian multidisciplinary artist based between London and Dubai. Interested in themes of memory and the metaphysical he sources images from the subconscious through his work as a healer. He holds an MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths University of London, UK, with the support of the Tashkeel Scholarship Fund, where he was awarded the Warden’s Prize for his degree show. El-Malak’s work in fashion was acquired by the V&A Museum in London, making him the first Palestinian fashion designer in their permanent collection.
Aya Abu Hawash
Aya Abu Hawash is a Palestinian multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, mixed media, and archival research. She holds an MFA from Université Libanaise – Institut des Beaux-Arts (2016) and is completing postgraduate studies at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. Her work explores how intimacy clashes with brutality, with figures and landscapes reflecting the fluidity of relationships and instability during crises. She questions how intimacy in Arab culture functions through hidden archives. Aya is currently a resident at Cité Internationale des Arts and is developing Archives of Desire during her 2025 residency at La Chartreuse, Avignon.
Antoine Elias Raffoul
Palestinian-British architect Antoine Elias Raffoul was born in Nazareth, Palestine, in 1941. His family and he were expelled from Haifa, Palestine, on April 8, 1948, and settled in Tripoli, Lebanon, never allowed to return. He earned a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Illinois, USA, practicing briefly in New York and eventually settling in London, UK, where he set up his own architectural firm until his retirement in 2012. He advocates for Palestine via the online platform www.1948.org.uk.
Curators:
Rula Khoury
Rula Khoury is a Haifa-based curator, art historian, and critic. She holds an MA in Art History from the University of Haifa and an MA in Writing Art Criticism from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Khoury has held key leadership roles, including General Director of the Arab Culture Association and Artistic Director of the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center. Her curatorial projects include the Manam exhibition and the Autonomous Biennale. Her criticism appears in AWARE and Tohu, and she has authored two children’s books. Currently, she is the founder of the new Jaffa gallery, Al-Mathaneh.
Joëlle Tomb
Joëlle Tomb is an abstract painter, curator, and art advocate based in Newton, Massachusetts. Born in Lebanon and raised in Saudi Arabia and Canada, she holds a Master’s degree in Education. Art is central to her family legacy: her grandfather, Maroun Tomb, was a Lebanese-Palestinian painter, and her father, Fouad Tomb, is a modern Lebanese artist and arts educator. Joëlle co-founded the Fouad & May Tomb Foundation for the Arts in 2020 and established The Lost Paintings, Inc. in 2024, a nonprofit dedicated to uncovering untold stories behind art. Alongside her artistic practice, she works in luxury residential real estate.
Haidi Motola
Haidi Motola is a visual artist and a doctoral student at the Academy of Fine Arts of Uniarts Helsinki. Her research focuses on archives, memory and political imagination in the colonial context. Since 2016, she has been a member of Activestills, a collective of documentary photographers, whose work focuses on decolonial struggles in Palestine. Over the years, she has been involved in various art and activist initiatives.
