SALEH BARAKAT ART GALLERY would like to invite you to the opening of:
AFAF ZURAYK - Return Journeys curated by Sylvia Agémian
My life in art is a perpetual return to what resonates within me and what prompts me to open gates into unknown gardens: to plant and to weed, to prune and to cultivate, both senses and thoughts into a coherent, organic and complex whole.
I see my art as a garden without a fence having been watered by endless journeys of exile and of communion; of love and of separation; of milk and of merging mirrors.
I only hope that my garden is deep enough and expansive enough to contain you. For we are each other’s mirror. And our birth grows out of our joint reflection. My hope is that these reflections from the roots for more growth and more love. Despite all. Afaf Zurayk
Curated by Sylvia Agémian, this retrospective exhibition introduces us to the very heart of Afaf Zurayk’s artistic journey by grouping works created in a period that spans more than three decades. It unveils, through a variety of media, cycles, stages, and themes, paintings that are at once heartfelt and meditative and yet impact us as much by their power as by their delicate spiritual quality.
Born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1948, Afaf Zurayk graduated from the American University of Beirut with a BA degree in Fine Arts in 1970, and pursued graduate studies at Harvard University, obtaining an MA degree in Fine Arts in 1972. She taught Studio Arts and Art History at Beirut University College [now the Lebanese American University], and painting at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. In Washington, DC, she taught drawing and painting in Continuing Education at the Corcoran College of Art and Design and Georgetown University. Zurayk’s painting is in the permanent collections of the Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon and Darat al Funun in Amman, Jordan. In addition to her many solo exhibitions, both in Beirut and Washington, DC, she has participated in a number of group shows, most notably the exhibition “Forces of Change” held in 1994 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. Zurayk has published three books: My Father. Reflections (2010), Lovesong (2011), and Drawn Poems (2012). Afaf Zurayk now lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon.
Opening: Friday 18 January 2019 at 7 pm (till 23 February 2019)
Venue: Saleh Barakat Gallery, Clemenceau, Justinian Street, Beirut, Lebanon
Contact: +961 1 365615