Michael Halak was born in 1975 in Fassuta village (upper Galilee, North Palestine). He currently lives and works in Haifa, teaching painting and drawing in the Art Department at Haifa University. After studying Fine Arts at Haifa University, Halak won a residence scholarship in 2005 to attend the Florence Academy of Art, Italy. There, he would perfect his hyperrealist style. He graduated with a MFA at Haifa University in 2009.

Michael Halak’s works move along the frontier between hyperrealism and conceptualism. The illusion of reality represented on canvas may be seductively beautiful and perfect, but equally conveys feelings of disruption and disintegration. The perfectly constructed and executed works depict landscapes, feeling, often impermanence, hybridity, entrapment or categorization. Halak plays with our perception to make us feel what he feels, to experience his reality: a life in transition, in a place that is not really his.

Halak has exhibited in many galleries in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. Halak has won several awards including the Ministry of Culture and Sports for contemporary artists (twice) and the Rappaport prize for a young painter and many more. His work can be found in several public and private collections in Palestine and abroad.