The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Beirut would like to invite you to an encounter with Norwegian painter Håkon Gullvåg. This event will feature a presentation and a Q&A, with select artworks of Håkon Gullvåg on display at the venue.

Born in the Norwegian city of Trondheim in 1959, Håkon Gullvåg is one of Norway’s most honoured figurative painters. His paintings often include references to great European masters like Goya and Velázquez. He is also considered one of Norway’s most prominent developers of modern, religious art and a renewer of portraiture.

Between 2007 and 2008, Gullvåg collaborated with Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour on a Norwegian-Palestinian exhibition, presented in Ramallah and Trondheim. This collaboration marked the beginning of an artistic engagement for the Palestinian cause that Gullvåg since has worked on for a decade.

In 2009 Gullvåg opened his exhibition entitled Terra Sancta, which was the painter’s homage to the children of Gaza and focuses on the child’s fate in the inferno of war. Terra Sancta was widely debated in the Norwegian press and proclaimed as one of the most significant political art exhibitions of the decade in Norway. Gullvåg later toured with this exhibition in Beirut, Damascus and Amman.

On the occasion of Gullvåg’s 60th birthday in 2019, the artist decided to start the jubilee year with an art exhibition at the Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon. The choice of location is not random, and the art will be donated for the funding of child care in the refugee camp.