Mohamad Fadel began painting as a child and has continued since, without ever studying off icially. He was born in 1977 in Kafr Yasif, and at the age of 5 the family moved to Haifa. He paints on the roof, on the f lat surface amid the solar panels, overlooking Haifa port and downtown Haifa. After graduating from high school, he began working as a builder with his father.
At some point he wanted to enroll for studies in the Art Department at the
University of Haifa, but was told he was already a full-f ledged artist and
studying would only harm him.

- The work -
Fadel works in series which bear such names as "Keys," "Ice cream,"
"Honey," "Hunger," or "Freedom." Most of the paintings have an inner frame, emphasizing that the painting is a world unto itself, closed and complete, with laws all its own. The series "Ice Cream" is divided into tastes according to color (lemon, strawberry, chocolate, pistachio...) with cones and ice cream balls piling up to generate totem-like poles. The series "Keys" repeats the image of a key which transforms into a pattern, and subsequently into a symbol: locking and unlocking, erotic and repetitious. The "Honey" paintings are thick, yellow-orange, sweetly venomous; bees outlined in felt-tip pen over the acrylic paints inundate the painting, often calling to mind aircraft. Army uniform, bombs, and tanks burst forth from this tangle. Fadel is a quintessential colorist; his painting is akin to a trap: luring, they make one draw nearer and linger, only to trap him in their density and tension.