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NABIL NAHAS
Don’t Get Me WronG
at the 61st VENICE BIENNALE
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For the Lebanese Pavilion at the 61st edition of the Venice Biennale, Nabil Nahas explores the relationship between humanity, nature, and the cosmos through an immersive installation that transforms spectacle into a vehicle for introspection and spiritual reflection.
Bringing together the distinct strands of his work, Nahas unites his practice of painting parallel series into a single, expansive vision. His celebrated tree portraits, powerful symbols of the Lebanese landscape, merge with his intricate fractal compositions, which reflect shifting scales of cosmological and quantum phenomena. In this work, these once separate visual languages converge, forming a dynamic interplay between the terrestrial and the infinite.
Reflecting Lebanon’s fluid and multicultural identity, the Pavilion becomes an ode to unity within diversity and the beauty of contradiction, an enduring concern in Nahas’s decades-long artistic journey between Lebanon and the United States. Rather than presenting disjointed narratives, the installation offers a cohesive, living entity, an identity in constant flux, shaped by layers of history, -
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NABIL NAHAS IN CONVERSATION WITH NADA GHANDOUR
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AVAILABLE WORKS BY NABIL NAHAS
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AT LAWRIE SHABIBI
Nabil Nahas: 'Tethys', 30 October 2023 - 5 January 2024 -
Tethys was the third solo exhibition by the renowned Lebanese American artist Nabil Nahas at Lawrie Shabibi, taking viewers on a journey through the boundless world of colour, texture, and imagination. It was on view from 30 October 2023 to 5 January 2024.
Nabil Nahas drew inspiration from his Mediterranean roots—reconnecting to the places of his childhood, Lebanon and Egypt, and a deep affinity for the human soul—and explored these themes through the lens of colour, texture, and the enigmatic world of nature. He took cues from celestial and marine phenomena, creating multi-layered paintings that evoked biomorphic and organic forms. Nahas’s artistic expression was rooted in abstract geometry and three-dimensional explorations, playing with scale to invite visitors to delve into microcosmic worlds within the canvas. He presented a carefully curated selection of his paintings that transported viewers into a realm of vibrant hues, tactile experiences, and hypnotic atmospheres. His works featured vivid depictions of cedars, olive trees, and palms, alongside his evolving Fractal series.
The exhibition was divided into two distinct parts, each offering a unique perspective on Nahas’s work. In the first part, he presented his Fractal paintings, which alluded to the cycles of nature. Drawing from celestial and marine phenomena, these multi-layered works evoked biomorphic and organic forms, acting as a bridge between microscopic and macroscopic worlds while emphasising the interconnectedness of natural systems. The second part of Tethys focused on Nahas’s portrayal of Lebanon’s emblematic trees within his Landscapes series. These subjects held deep personal significance, evoking memories of his childhood. From coastal palm trees to ancient Lebanese cedars and olive trees he collected, Nahas approached them as “portraits,” magnifying their presence and imbuing them with a sense of gravitas that paid homage to their historical and cultural resonance.
Tethys referred to the rich history of the Tethys Sea—an enigmatic body of water that once spanned the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, and parts of Asia, and which played a defining role in the Earth’s geological and biological evolution.
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NABIL NAHAS
(b. 1949, Beirut)Nabil Nahas (b. 1949, Beirut, Lebanon) was born in Beirut and spent the first ten years of his life in Cairo. He received a BFA from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, in 1971 and an MFA from Yale University in 1973, after which he established himself in New York, where he became known as a master of colour, texture and atmosphere. Although thoroughly schooled in Western abstract painting, his work draws on a diverse range of influences, most significantly nature and, at times, Islamic art, particularly its abstract geometric and chromatic qualities. Among the series for which he is best known are his thickly encrusted starfish and fractal paintings, built up through layers of acrylic mixed with pumice and finished in vivid colour, as well as landscape works depicting cedars, olive trees and palms that reconnect him to the places of his childhood in Lebanon and Egypt.
His solo exhibitions include Spotlight, Frieze Masters with Lawrie Shabibi, London (2023); Tethys, Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai (2023); Grounded in the Sky, Château La Coste, France (2023); Ben Brown Fine Arts, Hong Kong (2018); Saleh Barakat Gallery, Beirut (2016); Ben Brown Fine Arts, London (2014); Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai (2013); Sperone Westwater, New York (2013); Ben Brown Fine Arts, London (2011); Palms and Stars, Lawrie Shabibi (2011); Beirut Exhibition Center (2010); FIAF Gallery, New York (2010); and Galerie Tanit, Munich (2009).
He has participated in numerous group exhibitions including The Armory Show with Ben Brown Fine Arts, New York (2024); Kawkaba: Highlights from the Barjeel Art Foundation, Christie’s, London (2023); KanYaMakan, Galerie Tanit, Beirut, Lebanon (2022); Infinite Geometry, Tate Modern, London (2021); The Four Seasons: SUMMER, Ben Brown Fine Arts, London (2020); Currently Published, Vivian Horan Fine Art, NY (2019); A Century in Flux: Highlights from the Barjeel Art Foundation, Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah (2017); Dallas Art Fair with Lawrie Shabibi (2017); Jardins d’Orient, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris (2016); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2012); Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2012); Venice Biennale collateral exhibition, Murano (2011); and Stux Gallery, New York (2010), among others.
His work is held in major international collections including Tate, London; the British Museum, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; the Colby College Museum of Art; the Barjeel Art Foundation; and the Flint Institute of Arts.
In 2013 he was awarded the National Order of the Cedar for services to Lebanese culture.
Nahas lives and works between New York and Beirut.
