Young Palestinian carves sculptures with metal wires

It always takes al-Nabahin long hours of work to make the metal wire into variety of forms in his home in al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip.

The young man, who studies business administration in a Gaza university, has never participated into training courses anywhere and he is "completely self-taught."

"I've seen sculptures made by British artists online and I've learned many techniques from Youtube videos," al-Nabahin told Xinhua.

His first piece of work was a small tree made up of copper wires he found at home.

The young man, who is the first Palestinian to practice this kind of art, said this art requires much patience and steady nerves.

Metal wires are materials that have been employed in this art works, known as wire sculpture.

One of the pioneers of this art is the American sculptor Alexander Calder, who has greatly developed wire sculpturing techniques that serve the kinetic perception of sculpture art.

Al-Nabahin was encouraged by his father to make his talent in wire sculpture into a stable source of livelihood.

With much concentration, al-Nabahin forms figures and animals out of small wires, turning them into fine masterpieces.

He uses a range of materials, such as hexagonal mesh, wire links and copper wire.

"I recycle things and try to overcome the shortage of some raw materials, form them as in my imagination," al-Nabahin said.

Due to lack of financial support, he could hardly find ready-made brass wires in the form of rollers, so he removes copper from inside power cord, which consumes much time and efforts.

It takes al-Nabahin one to four days, sometimes longer, to carve a single piece, depending on the details of the work.

His sculptures have featured items like famous cartoon characters, animals, trees as well as persons, which requires knowledge of the anatomy of the body of women and men to form detailed pieces of art, said al-Nabahin.

Nearly fifty sculptures have been done since the beginning of this year, which cost between 40 and 250 shekels (12 to 70 U.S. dollars) each.

Al-Nabahin aspires to makes an international exhibition one day.

"Organizing such an exhibition is a dream, but I have more dreams... I want to be the world's best wire sculpture artist," he said.