A visual artist born in Damascus in 1973 to a refugee Palestinian family originally from Gaza, Motaz Naeem has centered memory and exile in his artistic practice from the very beginning. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from Damascus University in 1997, where the features of his artistic vision began to emerge, blending expressive and abstract sensibilities with a continuous exploration of existence within the Palestinian context. After graduating, Motaz returned to Gaza to settle and pursue his artistic and educational work for more than two decades, until the genocidal war on Gaza broke out in October 2023.

During this period, he endured one of the harshest experiences, losing his home, studio, memories, and artworks, before being able to leave for Egypt to continue his artistic journey temporarily, with a deeper spirit. Motaz worked as a lecturer at the College of Science and Technology in Khan Yunis, contributing through his academic experience to shaping a new visual awareness among his students. He believes that art is not merely an educational subject but also a means of survival, resistance, and redefining Palestinian identity.

Motaz Naem’s style is distinguished by its ability to balance artistic lyricism with emotional depth. He does not aim to represent reality as it is, but to evoke its impact and memory, transforming colors and spaces into emotional fields that store absence, longing, and belonging. Place appears in his works - whether a city, a sea, a camp, or a village - as a visual symbol carrying collective memory and reconstructing the image of the Palestinian person, caught between loss and resistance. His works exhibit visual clarity and balanced composition, moving beyond impressionism toward a contemplative, expressive space, where layers of color and time intertwine to create an effect resembling the visual breathing of memory.

Motaz views painting as a spiritual document that records the human imprint against erasure, making art a form of survival. He has participated in dozens of group exhibitions inside and outside Palestine and has held four solo exhibitions in Syria, Palestine, and the UAE. Motaz’s works that combine artistic maturity with human sincerity can be read as a visual memory of an entire generation and as an artistic statement against absence, proving that art can simultaneously be a witness, a cry, and a space for hope.