In my work, I take a critical look at the social, political, and cultural issues that form contemporary life for the Lebanese. Middle Eastern culture and people have often been portrayed as “other,” unfamiliar, exotic, and uncivilized. What is the “Middle-East?” What does it mean to be Arab? My pursuit in painting a more honest Arabness is to break down the otherness that we have been assigned and insert more truthful and inquisitive versions of ourselves into the painting and portraiture tradition. I paint subjects off of pictures I have taken, engaging with them as I photograph them. I value the input of the people I am painting and include them in all phases of my process because they inform my direction and the outcomes of my projects. Whether at grandmother's home, at a wedding in Beirut, or at a hairdresser; the people, objects, places, and moments in my works are real. In my portraits, I paint the many faces of Lebanese contemporary life and offer a more complicated look into the many things that shape our collective and individual identities. I create my works with generally muted tones: after the photography stage, I sketch out my images on canvas with pencil and add layers of paint which I later glaze with more vibrant color and detail. I like to maintain a faded tone to keep expressions the focus of my paintings and to signal that although I am representing truths in my works, those truths are limited by the reality that they belong to my own perspective.

Exhibition History

Tryfon Art Residency – Molyvos, Greece 08-2019

WIP Art Fair – New York, NY 07-2017

Sotheby’s Employee Art Exhibition - New York, NY 08-2016

Gallatin Arts Festival – New York, NY 04-2016

International Baccalaureate Exhibition – Beirut, Lebanon 04-2012

Education

University College London – MSc – London, UK 2019

New York University – BA – New York, NY 2016

Services

Commissioned portraits

Illustration and design

Art and exhibition consultation