Laure Ghorayeb

Born in 1931 in Deir al-Qamar, Laure Ghorayeb is a Lebanese artist, poet, art critic and author of 4 published books. As a witness of Lebanon’s recent history, Ghorayeb’s work obsessively documents the people and events in her life, combining an almost childlike naivety with a rather dark metaphysical perception. Ghorayeb has participated, since 1966, in a number of solo and collective exhibitions in Lebanon, Europe, Asia and the Arab world, and most recently in “Home Beirut: Sounding the Neighbors” (2017), at the MAXXI Museum in Rome. Represented by Galerie Janine Rubeiz since 2001, she has held a number of solo and group shows, and collaborated with her son, Mazen Kerbaj, on 3 exhibitions all between 2001 and 2015 at the gallery where, In 2016, she was featured in “The Doors of Perception”, alongside artists Huguette Caland and Etel Adnan. Her work is part of a number of prominent collections, like the collection of the British Museum, Sursock Museum and Fondation Saradar.
Ghorayeb passed away in February 2023.

About her work:

 

As a witness of the years of the Lebanese Civil War, not only as an artist but also as a poet and journalist, Laure Ghorayeb obsessively drew the horrors of the war on caricaturesque works that depict personal adventures and the experience of loss through animated but profoundly irreverent abject characters.

Excavating history in humorous and often sardonic passages, Ghorayeb quotes history to history itself, using a methodology closer to the cinematic montage than mere collage. Drawings overlaid alongside newspaper cuts, personal notes, photographs, cuts from magazines, scraps of paper, sometimes mere doodling.

An accurate surveying of the territory of impossibility called Beirut and its broken voices, shredded between the same newspaper cuts, personal notes, photographs cuts from magazines and scraps of paper.

The search for upheaval and freedom through narration is at the heart of an artist who, after publishing a number of works, has moved into more conceptual fields where found materials and embroidery beans become primary elements of an aesthetic aimed to construct a world still a war, still beset by turmoil, still un-free, still held in chains.

 

 

Related Exhibitions

"L'ivresse des yeux" - Laure Ghorayeb

December 13, 2017 to January 13, 2018

"Oeuvres Récentes" - Collective Exhibition 2017

July 26, 2017 to August 22, 2017

October 17, 2019 - First Edition

December 04, 2019 to January 08, 2020

Beirut 2020 - Collective Exhibition

October 14, 2020 to November 27, 2020

Encounters 2023 - Open Call

September 29, 2022 to December 29, 2022

Laure Ghorayeb - A contre - courant

May 09, 2001 to May 26, 2001

L'Abecedaire de Laure Ghorayeb et Mazen Kerbaj

March 11, 2015 to April 03, 2015

Abu Dhabi Art Fair 2018

November 14, 2018 to November 17, 2018

Beirut Art Fair 2018

September 20, 2018 to September 23, 2018

Collective Exhibition

December 03, 2008 to December 31, 2008

Art 14 London

February 28, 2014 to March 02, 2014

Abu Dhabi Art Fair 2013

November 20, 2013 to November 23, 2013

Art Dubai Art Fair 2013

March 20, 2013 to March 23, 2013

Beirut Art Fair 2013

September 19, 2013 to September 22, 2013

Abu Dhabi Art Fair 2011

November 16, 2011 to November 19, 2011

Beirut Art Fair 2015

September 17, 2015 to September 20, 2015

Art Dubai Modern 2016

March 16, 2016 to March 19, 2016

Abu Dhabi Art Fair 2012

November 19, 2009 to November 22, 2009

Abu Dhabi Art Fair 2014

November 05, 2014 to November 08, 2014

Abu Dhabi Art Fair 2016

November 16, 2016 to November 19, 2016

Art Dubai Art Fair 2011

March 16, 2011 to March 19, 2011

Art Dubai Art Fair 2010

March 17, 2010 to March 20, 2010

Abu Dhabi Art Fair 2009

November 19, 2009 to November 22, 2009

Abu Dhabi Art Fair 2017

November 08, 2017 to November 11, 2017

Europ' Art 2003 - Genève

April 30, 2003 to May 04, 2003

L'Art aux enfants - deuxième edition

December 08, 2002 to December 15, 2002

L'Art aux enfants - troisième edition

December 07, 2003 to December 14, 2003

Coup d’œil – Passe et présent I :

June 01, 2005 to July 15, 2005