Murad Subay

2016 – Group Exhibition, Yemeni Film & Arts Festival, The Yemen Peace Project, NY, USA.

2016 – Group Exhibition, Yemeni Film & Arts Festival, The Yemen Peace Project, DC, USA.

2016 - Freedom of Expression Arts Award and Fellowship Program, Index on Censorship Organization, London, UK.

He became widely known as an activist after launching several street art campaigns that criticized the political situation in his country and the conflicts which broke out in 2015 in Yemen. He always paints in the light of day and invites people to join him paint openly in the streets. People from different backgrounds and ages have joined him in his campaigns to express their own views around the political scene in Yemen. The influence of these campaigns spread to other cities such as Sana'a, Taiz, Aden, Ibb and Alhudaydah where similar campaigns were launched soon after. Subay has been compared to fellow street artist Banksy.

In early 2015, specifically on January 15, 2015, Subay launched a forth campaign that he called "Dawn Sculptures". He led it off with an installation about "Elmuqah", an ancient Yemeni symbol that represents the unity of Yemenis and their state 3000 years ago. Subay was meaning to continue working on this campaign, had it not for the power outages and lack of funding that forced him to postpone the activity.

After the regional and internal conflicts broke out in Yemen in 2015, Subay launched the fifth campaign "Ruins" on May 18, 2015, to commemorate the victims of the conflicts and to highlight the catastrophic situation of the country. He often paints in the areas ruined due to the conflicts. Subay painted his first mural in the campaign in an area called "Bani Hawat" located in the suburbs of Sana'a, where an airstrike killed almost 27 civilians, including 15 children.

Through his Facebook page, Subay invited people to paint openly along with him in the streets on the third anniversary of his first street art campaign "Color the Walls of Your Streets" on March 15, 2015, an event which he called "Humans and Art Day". He invited people to the event to express their love for life, beauty, homeland, and their fear of an expected civil war. They painted on one of the walls of Hadda street in Central Sana'a city.

2015 - Certificate of Appreciation, UN (ESCWA), Beirut, Lebanon.

2014 – Group Exhibition, Talk Love .. Act Peace, Contemporary Art Platform (CAP), Kuwait.

2014 – Group Exhibition, Unrest: Art, Activism & Revolution, Helen Day Art Center, VT, USA.

2014 - The Art for Peace Award, Veronesi Foundation, Milan, Italy.

2014 - The Youth Shield for Creativity, Yemeni socialist Party, Sana'a, Yemen.

On July 4, 2013, Subay launched the third campaign "12 Hours" to discuss 12 political and social issues affecting the Yemeni society and led it off with a mural about spread of weapons. Fellow artists started to join him during the second activity of the campaign which was about sectarianism.

2013 - The Innovation Shield, the American Islamic Congress Organization, Sana'a, Yemen.

Subay drew his inspiration to launch his first campaign "Color the Walls of Your Street" from the damaged walls of the streets. He went down alone to the streets with his tools on March 15, 2012 to paint contemporary murals on the walls. He then posted a public invitation for people through his Facebook page to join him in painting openly. A week later, many people showed up to paint with him on March 22, 2012. He then invited people every Thursday morning to join him in painting murals openly, and often painted alone in other days.

Soon after finishing his first campaign, Subay launched his second campaign which marked the transition to political art. He called the campaign "The Walls Remember Their Faces" on September 8, 2012 to highlight the forcibly disappearance of political activists and journalists from the late 1960s and until 2011. He used stencil technique to paint the faces of the forcibly disappeared on the walls of the cities and invited their families and people in general to join him.

For a whole year, Subay and fellow artists painted murals about a certain subject each month in the streets of Sana'a city. The 12 topics they discussed were spread of weapons, sectarianism, kidnappings, tempering with homeland, US drones, poverty, civil war, terrorism, children recruitment, treason, corruption and an open topic in the 12th activity of the campaign.

In the spring of 2011, specifically with the start of the peaceful Yemeni revolution, Murad was one of earliest to join the protestors in their demand of a just, civil state. He used to spend most of his time inside the change square, inspecting the entrants for weapons and joining the peaceful rallies. When the political parties seized control of the course of the revolution, he left the change square disappointed.

Murad Subay (born July 3, 1987 in Dhamar) is a Yemeni contemporary artist, street artist and a political activist who has launched several street art campaigns of which society engagement marked one of their important elements. He first started to paint on the streets after the revolution of 2011, in a campaign he called "Color the Walls of Your Street".

Murad Subay was born in Dhamar, Yemen on July 3, 1987. He was raised there until the age of 6, before his family moved to live in the capital Sana'a. He lived in Sana'a with his mother and six siblings. Murad used to draw at school, but he only became interested in art in the age of 14 when he painted his first sketch and received encouragements from his family. He studied English Literature from 2007 to 2011 at Sana'a University.