Art heals!
A long career in the news media as a senior executive in London, and a childhood spent in Lebanon during its civil war, meant that I saw too much of what's wrong with the world. But I knew, of course, that there is also so much to celebrate, and so I needed a constant reminder of all that is good and beautiful. Self-taught art provided that, and it became a lifeline. In the end, the decision to quit the all consuming day job in favour of a life of art was easy to make.
Of the things that define my art, two stand out: The dual identity that I cherish, and optimism!
The dual identity is courtesy of the two layers that make me who I am today: The root heritage of my birth in a Lebanon that is both beautiful on the shores of the Mediterranean and troubled in the winds of an unstable region; and the rich influences of an adult life spent almost entirely living in the UK and working as a senior executive in international news media.
Secondly, I am an eternal optimist! Optimism has bridged all the gaps of my life, made sense of a confusing world, and provided the joy that you can only get from believing that there is something to earn or learn from almost everything that happens.
My art reflects the passions I've held since my childhood. An old impressionist painting of a busy Parisian avenue in my family's living room in Lebanon, still there to this day, has left in me an enduring love of cityscapes from the turn of the 19th into the 20th century. It depicts a wide boulevard, full of people going about their business or their promenades. A moment in the life of a city and its inhabitants. That evolved into a fascination with the wider rebellious impressionist, post-impressionist and modern art from that era onwards. I could never get enough of it: The atmosphere created in cityscapes, landscapes and these hopeful, communal moments in people's lives. It is this that continues to drive and inspire my art today.
I mainly work with oils and acrylics, with occasional forays into charcoal and sketching, among others.
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