Contemporary Palestinian art is a term used to describe artwork produced by Palestinians post-1970. It is produced in four main geographic centers: 1) The West Bank and Gaza 2) Israel 3) the Palestinian diaspora across the Arab World 4) the Palestinian diaspora in the United States and Europe. Due to the widespread geographic presence of Palestinians as well as a lack of Palestinian institutions and historical museum infrastructure, contemporary artists focus on highlighting Palestinian identity as opposed to specific territorial claims or centralized cultural institutions. Artists rely on the collective experiences, shared narratives, and symbolic representations of Palestine.

Palestinians experienced mass exile and dislocation in 1948 known as al-Nakba, or “the Catastrophe”. Following the Nakba, artists began depicting this violent displacement through images of massacres, refugees on foot, abandoned homes, and other iconography (see below). Later events such as The Six Day War, the 1982 Lebanese War, the 1993 Oslo accords, and The First and Second Intifada heavily influenced contemporary artists. Widespread liberation movements brought upon surges in resistance art. Artists now felt a sense of urgency which they illustrated through their stark imagery including guns, blood and graves.

Notably following the Palestinian Liberation Organization's establishment in 1964, art became a widespread means of defiance during the Intifadas. For example, the PLO designed, produced, and disseminated thousands of posters to advocate for Palestinian national identity, mobilize support for resistance, and highlight key political events or issues. These posters often employed bold and recognizable visual elements and nowadays are often created and distributed digitally, increasing their reach and extending to international audiences. For example, political cartoonist Naji all-Ali produced thousands of cartoons, many featuring the recognizable child Handala, the woman Fatima, and the fat man representing Arab leaders. These were all created in an attempt to criticize not only the Israeli state, but also the inefficiency of the Arab states. Until the 1990s, there was limited gallery space and opportunities for Palestinian artists to display their work professionally in Palestine. Despite their censorship, collectives of artists have created contemporary art movements in Palestine. In Gaza, The Eltiqa for Contemporary Art and The Shababik Windows for Contemporary Art galleries (created in 2002 and 2009 respectively) were active galleries and organizations supporting local artistic creation. Both have since been destroyed by Israeli forces. Contemporary art in Gaza, while fragile due to the lack of stable public or private support and an underdeveloped local art market, possesses a unique flexibility. While artists in the Palestinian diaspora engage with their environments, those in Gaza have cultivated self-sustaining practices shaped by confinement, economic instability, and political upheaval. This has turned artists to use mediums such as graffiti, cartoons, posters, and other urban art forms. These conditions have driven Gazan artists to break from tradition and reinvent their approaches, using art as a means of expressing freedom and resistance rather than merely building on or imitating past practices.

Use of specific recurring symbols and iconography in contemporary Palestinian art, contribute to a movement to articulate a national Palestinian identity. These contemporary symbols of nationalism, originated from cultural symbols in the context of the political and socio-economic conditions of Palestine in the early 20th century to present day. Post-Nakba, Palestinian nationalistic imagery works to convey central themes of dispossession, displacement, suffering, and longing for return to homeland.

Following the 1948 Nakba, the key became a recurring symbol in Palestinian art, literature, and media. Many Palestinians who became displaced from their homes post-Nakba, carried with them the keys to their former residences, as “evidence of their property ownership in the pre-Nakba period”. In retaining the keys to their lost homes, the Key is a visual reminder of the loss, displacement, memory, and nostalgia of homeland for Palestinians in refugeehood. The key thus has become a symbol for the Palestinian national narrative of the ‘right of return,’ which encompasses the collective desire of Palestinians to return to their homelands. In the context of the ‘right of return’ the key additionally represents a rejection of Israeli occupation, and has become a protest symbol.

The key can be seen across contemporary art including works such as:

The city of Jerusalem, is also commonly depicted in contemporary Palestinian art. The connection between Palestinians and Jerusalem stems from the city's historical, religious, political-economic, cultural, and geographical significance to Palestinians. The Old City–an area of Jerusalem containing multiple holy sites to Christians, Jews, and Muslims–is most commonly referenced in Palestinian contemporary artworks depicting Jerusalem. These representations of the Old City often place higher emphasis on the landscape, architecture, and religious icons of the city, rather than on specific figures and cultural details. The Dome of the Rock–an Islamic shrine located in the Old City–is specifically used across contemporary artworks of Jerusalem. Artwork illustrating the landscape of the Old City of Jerusalem, embodies a utopian image of the city, representing Palestine as the land of peace. Depictions of Jerusalem within contemporary Palestinian art, in working to evoke feelings of loss and a desire to return to a historical past, contributes to a nationalist narrative.

Depictions of Jerusalem can be seen across contemporary art including works such as: