Alaa Attoun is a Palestinian visual artist born in Amman, Jordan, in 1994. At eight months old, he returned with his family to Jerusalem, where he grew up and is currently based.
He holds a BA in Contemporary Arts from Dar Al-Kalima University in Bethlehem. Following his graduation, he taught drawing at the university, worked as an art teacher in Jerusalem schools, and served as an assistant art coordinator at Al-Markaz Contemporary Art Gallery in Jerusalem. He has also assisted in the installation of exhibitions in Ramallah, Haifa, and Jerusalem.
Alaa currently works as a freelance artist. His practice centers primarily on pencil drawing, through which he explores his relationship with place and examines personal and collective narratives. Working with a hyperrealistic approach across drawing and performance photography, he investigates memory, presence, identity, and the layers embedded within lived experience.
His first solo exhibition, Stations, was held at Beit Alkarma Gallery in Haifa in 2023.
Alaa has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including the Ramallah Art Fair at Zawyeh Gallery in 2021; WHERE TO?, featuring the winning works of the fifth edition of the Ismail Shammout Fine Art Award at Dar Al-Kalima in 2019; the Dream Exhibition at Al-Markaz Contemporary Art Gallery in Jerusalem in 2018; and the international Imago Mundi project exhibition and catalogue, Mediterranean Routes, in Palermo, Italy, in 2017.
He received third place in the third edition of the Karima Abboud Photography Award, organized by Dar Al-Kalima University in Bethlehem. In 2016, he participated in a performance by Iranian-Canadian artist Gita Hashemi in Beit Jala and took part in Hidden Dimensions, an exhibition presented as part of the Art and Resistance Conference