BIO

I was born in Baalbek, Lebanon, and art has been, is, and will always be a most essential part of who I am. 
It began early in my childhood. Both my parents were consummate musicians, and both loved -and had a deep affinity for- the arts. My father, a General Practitioner by trade, was an accomplished Oud player, and temporarily served in the Lebanese House of Senates. Among his other talents were beautiful rug patterns he designed, and which my grandmother wove into magnificent wool rugs.

Married young, I moved to Beirut at a time when the country was torn by the devastating fifteen-year civil war. In spite of the wreckage and horror (much of which I witnessed), I managed to earn my BFA , with Honors, from Art Institute of Beirut, while simultaneously raising my two sons. My ex-husband, no longer in military service and unemployed at that time, made life all that much more unbearable. Fearing for the well-being of my children, I arranged for a Loan-Grant that enabled me to migrate to the United States. 

I enrolled in Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, while working as a nanny and similar jobs. After completing my second Fine Arts Undergraduate Program, I received my MFA with Honors. This resulted in my being awarded the special “Art Citizenship” and citizenship for my sons as well.

Among my earlier works was a performance in Beirut that consisted of wrapping colored silk strips -representing bandages- around charred, bullet-riddled trees in Beirut's central park. Another performance was “planting” hundreds of long-stemmed red silk poppies in front-line sandbags. These art performances were considered the first of their kind in Lebanon. I continued doing performances at Art Center: "THEM and US," was an exploration of differences between “American” and “Arab” cultures, while taking on commercial jobs and private commissions to partially support myself, my family and tuition.

I then created “Scheherazade,” a filmstrip-like narrative of survival in the face of death as depicted throughout art history, composed of a hundred-and-one 15”x15" multimedia pieces.

DARK-LIGHT was another installation: 115 12" squares of interwoven silk ribbons illustrating the constant struggle within duality.

This was followed by a period of meditative contemplation that lasted a few years. Since then, I have dedicated myself to furthering the spiritual purpose and social resonance of my art, while still grappling with my own trauma from the horrors of war. I try to reconcile cruelty resulting from intolerance with compassion and spiritual "higher ground".

Recent such works were in my major one-person museum exhibition titled DARKEVENTWHITEHORIZON. The show included sculptures, paintings, and drawings.

For the sculptures, ranging from 117”x172”x84” to the more intimate 12” Cube1, I used wool, a material reminiscent of my grandmother’s rug-weaving, and also meant to convey my empathy for animals.

The larger pieces contort and protrude out of the wall, creating negative space, and exploding with both a primeval threat and gentle embrace.

The oversized oil paintings are of intense bold organic forms done in dark colors over black backgrounds. The drawings are complex constructs, intricate in detail, done in pencil and/or color. Both the paintings and drawings appear to have the multi-dimensionality of sculpture. The “ensemble” is meant to elicit that same sense of “energy amongst ruin” dynamic, and to create a powerful sense of beauty and growth fused with implicit ever-present destruction.

In 2020, I created CUBE 4, a 75"x90"  impressionistic oil painting, the fourth of my CUBE series, I then started my new series of more detailed sculptural color drawings. 

My recent sculpture was a self-portrait. “Built” with wool, it combines a classically worked face and neck, with larger-than-life wild hair done in a more expressionistic style. The cavities in the hair symbolize the invisible line between the roots and the gnarls on a tree-trunk, combining to grow a beautiful canopy; This in turn is symbolic of how life transcends all odds to transform the difficult and unpleasant into beauty, and more life.

My most recent works in progress are different room-size installations which include floor to ceiling sculptures, large sculptural paintings, and photographs to create an overwhelming environment that the viewer walks into. 

My work is currently showing in "Arabic Artists Work in the 80s" in TX. My huge sculpture WHOTE HOLE was invited into the "Excellence in Fibers" exhibit in January 2023. An art history professor from Berkely is writing an article about my past war performances to be published in the Art Journal magazine.

In addition to meeting with the Laguna Art Museum director in three weeks, for my near future public art project to work with and help many refugee women and their families in Lebanon, plus collecting data for a major documentary about resilience in the face of desperation.

Another huge future project consists of sacred geometric buildings-Centers several key locations. They intend to serve to enhance the personal as well as environmental quantum energy fields and artistic development, as well as awaken deeper social, intellectual and spiritual awareness in the viewers at large.