Working in Beirut, Palestinian sculptor Abdul Rahman Katanani and Lebanese painter Ayman Baalbaki channel shared experiences of war and Israeli military attacks into their art. Katanani repurposes refugee camp remnants into lyrical forms, while Baalbaki uses large-scale canvases to document urban ruin and regional conflict. Their practices draw heavily from childhoods defined by displacement, including Baalbaki's upbringing on Beirut's civil war front lines and the 1979 blacklisting of his family in Odaisseh.
Key points
Discarded materials from refugee camps serve as the physical foundation for Katanani's sc…: Discarded materials from refugee camps serve as the physical foundation for Katanani's sculptures addressing displacement and collective memory.
Baalbaki documents regional conflict through paintings of ruined architecture and portrai…: Baalbaki documents regional conflict through paintings of ruined architecture and portraits of veiled figures set against traditional southern Lebanese fabrics.
Decades of political violence and childhoods shaped by war directly inform both artists'…: Decades of political violence and childhoods shaped by war directly inform both artists' ongoing creative examinations of resilience.
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The large studios of Abdul Rahman Katanani and Ayman Baalbaki are filled with canvases and installations about memory and destruction, drawn from the Israeli wars that shaped both artists’ youth.
These magical spaces, one in an anonymous building in busy central Beirut, and the other far from the city in a village high in the hills, speak for Lebanon and Palestine.
They also define the two artists and their families.
Katanani’s materials are barbed wire, corrugated metal sheets, olive branches, petroleum barrels and discarded clothes from his birthplace, the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp.
“I’ve always wanted to use the materials of the camp. These materials are our shadows. No... they’re us,” he told Middle East Eye.
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The harsh materials yield startling lyrical shapes, such as a nine-metre wave in barbed wire, a child playing, a lotus flower and a bright early collage of clothes, including the unexpectedly intimate detail of underwear.
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