Lebanon’s rich cultural history, its resilient spirit, and its complex political landscape have all contributed to an exceptional artistic scene. With its diverse art forms, from contemporary and traditional visual arts to experimental and conceptual works, Lebanon continues to produce artists whose works resonate globally. As we move into 2025, here are 10 Lebanese artists whose work is not only thought-provoking but also deserving of your attention and support.
Batoul Yaghi
Lebanese self-taught abstract impressionist Batoul Yaghi has carved a niche for herself with her unique “Mind-scapes” series—visual representations of intricate thought processes. Living across Beirut, London, Miami, and Dubai, Yaghi draws on diverse influences, blending bold lines with delicate details.
Her large-scale canvases balance spontaneity with precision, reflecting both light and dark emotions. Rooted in the 20th-century ethos of art emerging from within rather than focusing on external subjects, her work captivates collectors worldwide, with pieces featured in Australia, Hong Kong, Miami, and the Middle East.
Yaghi’s art embodies purposeful complexity, offering aesthetic blueprints of mental landscapes that resonate with a global audience.
Ali Cherri
Ali Cherri (b. 1976, Beirut), a Paris-based artist, delves into the intersections of political violence, cultural artifacts, and landscapes through film, sculpture, and installations. Emerging from Beirut’s postwar art scene, his work reimagines discarded artifacts as hybrid creations, critiquing archaeology’s colonial legacies.
Cherri’s acclaimed films, including *The Dam* (2022) and *The Watchman* (2023), explore landscapes shaped by trauma, earning him the Silver Lion at the 59th Venice Biennale. His recent exhibitions, *Dreamless Night* (2023) and *Envisagement* (2024), fuse monumental sculptures with historical narratives, reflecting on humanity’s fragility and civilization’s destructive patterns.
Through art, Cherri crafts a poignant dialogue on impermanence and the enduring impact of violence.
Andre Kalfayan
Born in Byblos to Armenian parents, Andre Kalfayan is renowned for his evocative paintings of antique doors, windows, and balconies that capture the essence of Lebanese, Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean heritage. His unique technique blends earthy tones with tools like blades, pins, and brushes, creating a distinctive style instantly recognizable as his own.
Kalfayan’s works resonate deeply with audiences, bridging personal and universal experiences. A recipient of the 2018 BIAF award for Best Lebanese Artist, his artistry has earned accolades from esteemed institutions and publications worldwide.
Tagreed Darghouth
Lebanese artist Tagreed Darghouth (b. 1979, Saida) explores themes of humanity's fragility and socio-political issues. Educated in painting and Space Art in Lebanon and Paris, she transitioned to full-time art in 2007.
Her works address diverse topics, from the violence of the 2006 Lebanon War in *Falling Parts* to societal beauty standards in *Mirror Mirror!* (2008) and racial dynamics in *Fair and Lovely* (2010). Later, her series *Canticles of Death* (2011) tackled mortality and war, using skulls and nuclear explosions to juxtapose life and destruction.
In *The Vision Machine* (2015), Darghouth critiqued surveillance culture with impasto renderings of drones and cameras. Her layered techniques, earthy tones, and dynamic strokes evoke both control and spontaneity, making her work a compelling exploration of human vulnerability and global conflict.
Nabil Nahas
Lebanese-American artist Nabil Nahas (b. 1949, Beirut) is renowned for his vivid, textured paintings that blend geometry and nature. After earning an MFA from Yale in 1972, he settled in New York, later drawing inspiration from Lebanon’s iconic trees—cedars, olives, and palms—after a 1993 visit to his homeland.
Nahas’s works, including cosmic "Constellation" series and tree portraits, have been exhibited globally, such as at the São Paulo Bienal (2002), *Glasstress* Venice (2011), and Château La Coste, France (2023). His art is featured in major institutions like The MET, Tate Modern, and Mathaf Doha.
From his early solo show at Robert Miller Gallery (1977) to his ongoing exhibitions with Sperone Westwater, Nahas continues to merge cultural heritage with universal natural motifs.
Charles Khoury
Born in Beirut in 1966, Charles Khoury is a contemporary artist whose work reflects the turbulence of Lebanon’s history and his personal journey of discovery. A graduate of the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts, with a specialization in lithography, Khoury launched his career in 1989. He has exhibited widely across Europe, the Middle East, and beyond, earning accolades such as the “Special Jury Award” from Beirut’s Nicolas Sursock Museum (2008) and a residency at Morocco’s Lithography Workshop (2013).
Inspired by artists like Kandinsky, Klee, and Picasso, Khoury’s early works expressed the haunting "demons" of war. Over time, his art transitioned to depict a euphoric world intertwined with the animal kingdom, reflecting his hopes for humanity. With exhibitions in France, Lebanon, the UK, and more, Khoury remains a vital voice in the post-war Lebanese art scene.
Alfred Tarazi
Born in Beirut in 1980, Alfred Tarazi is a multidisciplinary artist known for his exploration of Lebanon’s Civil War through painting, photography, drawing, digital collage, sculpture, and installation. A graduate of the American University of Beirut, Tarazi’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at Galerie Krinzinger in Vienna, where he held two solo shows.
Tarazi’s art investigates the complex history of Lebanon, focusing on the Lebanese Civil War's enduring impact. He uses various visual strategies to uncover fields of memory, probing selective archival practices and interrogating the Lebanese obsession with history. His work represents the past not as a restoration but as fragmented anomalies, blending fiction and history to reflect war’s ongoing presence in the present. His approach is both political and personal, creating a "laboratory" for examining the construction of memory and identity.
Jad El Khoury
Jad El Khoury is an architect and visual artist whose work engages with public space to encourage audiences to rethink their familiar realities. His artistic practice is deeply influenced by ecological sensitivity, politics, architecture, and heritage, aiming to heal through site-specific installations and socially engaged projects.
After completing his master's degree in architecture at Lebanese University, Jad focused on the war traces found on Lebanon's buildings, transforming them into poetic installations that challenge sectarianism. His 2018 project *Burj El Hawa* marked a significant moment in his exploration of war’s physical and emotional scars. In 2020, he moved to Oslo to pursue a Master’s in Art and Public Space at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, graduating in 2022.
His work has been showcased internationally, earning accolades such as the Institute of Public Art Award and the Arte Laguna Prize for Urban and Land Art. Currently, he is in residence at Rådhuset i Oslo until 2024.
Chafa Ghaddar
Chafa Ghaddar, a Lebanese artist based in Dubai, graduated from the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA) with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts in 2007 and a Master’s in Visual Arts in 2009. She further honed her skills in fresco and traditional painting techniques in Florence, Italy, in 2012.
Specializing in wall painting and surface finishing, Ghaddar explores fresco in contemporary contexts and works across murals, painting, drawing, photography, and mixed media. Her site-specific and public art projects have been showcased in cities like Beirut, Dubai, New York, Brussels, and Verona. In 2014, she won the Boghossian Art Prize for painting, and in 2015, she was an artist-in-residence at Villa Empain in Brussels.
Her solo exhibitions include “The Visit” at Galerie Tanit, Beirut (2018), and “Cacti in a Daydream” (2021). In 2018/2019, she was part of Tashkeel Studio’s Critical Practice Program and presented “Recesses” in her first UAE solo show. Ghaddar was also commissioned to create a site-specific work for the 16th Lyon Biennale, curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath.
Nathalie Khayat
Nathalie Khayat (b.1966) is a Lebanese ceramist known for her sculptural works that bridge the poetic and functional. Creating pieces that range from decorative to utilitarian, Khayat’s deconstructed vessels engage in a dialogue with the clay, reflecting a journey from inner silence to exterior landscapes, and from stillness to movement.
Her work has been exhibited internationally at Agial Gallery, Beirut Art Center, and the Sursock Museum in Lebanon, as well as at Paris Design Week, Art Dubai, and PAD London and Paris. Khayat’s work is part of the permanent collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, UK.
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