Born in Beirut in 1970, Irene Ghanem is a bundle of joy and energy raised during the dark years of the Civil War (1975-1990). From a very young age, Irene developed an appetite for life, which she decided to put on canvas. Amidst the darkness surrounding her, she juggled colors and composition and is best known for her abstract expressionism.

Irene’s work depicts the amalgam of emotions experienced throughout her journey, going from the civil war to the worldwide trips she’s undertaken. Her style displays the influence of a variety of western painters such as Henri Matisse, Helen Frankenthaler, Willem de Kooning, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Joan Mitchell, as well as Lebanese artists such as Shafic Abboud, Amin El Bacha and her own professors, Yvette Achkar, Halim Jurdak and Rima Amyouni.

Early Life and Career

Irene’s career officially started in 1988, when she decided to study Fine Arts at L’Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA). On the night of her 20th birthday, as the civil war was about to end, Irene got hit by a rocket and ended up in the hospital, severely wounded, requiring more than seven surgeries and six months of rehabilitation. After this pivotal experience, Irene grew stronger and wiser, and her curiosity for the world around her rose exponentially. Encouraged by her parents and her future husband, Ismat Ghanem, she was able to resume her studies and thrive amidst and despite the country’s economic instability and civil war.

In 1992, she moved to France where she joined several workshops at Académie de la Grande Chaumière (1992-1995) and L’association Artistique de Marly le Roi et ses Environs– LAME (1994-1995). During that time, the young painter mastered the art of human anatomy and sharpened her quick-sketches’ skills. In 1995, Irene moved to Los Angeles, California, an awakening trip that would expose her to the American culture and the inspiring art of Willem de Kooning. After several enriching voyages, Irene returned to her home country Lebanon in 1997, with a head bursting with ideas and inspirations.

Between 2002 and 2006, Irene has had the chance of showcasing her work at several art exhibitions, restaurants and galleries in Lebanon and abroad: the UNESCO/ALBA exhibition (Beirut, 2002), Daraj el Fan (Beirut, 2003), La Posta (Lebanon), La Lipée (Canada) and Le Créateur Français Gallery (France).

For years, Irene, a painter, a wife and first and foremost a mother, put her career aside to take care of her family and raise her children, Noelle, Diane and Boutros. As she drew oil pastel and aquarelle sketches in her notebooks for the simple pleasure of it as her children grew, she was able to revive and nurture her passion for art. She opened her own Atelier Irene Ghanem in 2014. One year later, Irene held a sold-out exhibition in collaboration with the German Cultural Center in Lebanon (2015). She later participated in many collective or solo exhibitions such as ALBA Exhibition (2017), Musée Paul Guiragossian (2019), Beirut Art Fair (2019), Artscoops (2020, 2021), Artists of Beirut at Bossanova Hotel (2021), Rotating Art, Notre Dame de Jamhour (2022), ALBA Expo du Coeur (2022), Rotating Art, Italian Embassy Beirut (2023), Rotating Art Spanish embassy Beirut (2023), Rotating Art College Louise Wegmann (2023), Rotating Art Charles Corm Foundation Beirut (2024) and many others.

Artist Statement

“At the heart of my practice is a profound love of color—not as decoration, but as emotion, memory, and vibration. I am inspired by pioneers like Helen Frankenthaler, Shafic Abboud, and Yvette Achkar, and share their commitment to abstraction as a means of emotional articulation. Like Frankenthaler, I embrace the openness of the canvas. From Abboud, I inherited a lyrical, light-infused palette that speaks to the Mediterranean and the memory of place. And in Achkar’s bold chromatic harmonies, I find kinship— particularly in the fearless celebration of color as an existential language. Equally central to my work are the expressive forces of artists such as Mark Rothko, whose spiritual depth and atmospheric layering inform my meditative color fields; Wassily Kandinsky, whose belief in the emotional resonance of form and hue echoes in my intuitive compositions; and Willem de Kooning, whose dynamic brushwork and physical engagement with the canvas find parallel in my gestural, visceral approach.

But like many “spiritual” artists my voice is entirely my own. My canvases pulse with intuitive decisions and layered spontaneity and authenticity, where brushstrokes become gestures of thought, presence, and release. I paint not from observation, but from sensation—from moments remembered, fragmented, or felt in the body. My color fields are never static; they vibrate, shift, and expand, as if breathing, and express my feelings. There’s both urgency and softness here—a negotiation between control and surrender, between solidity and fluidity. And that is what is all about in the current “Entre Terre et Mer” exhibition. For me, painting is an act of embodiment. Each canvas is built through a process of layering, erasing, and rediscovery. My canvases are bold yet intimate—fields of color and movement that reveal a deep, intuitive connection between two opposites, the solid ground and the sea world. Shapes appear and dissolve; colors bleed and resist; textures emerge from the tension between movement and stillness. These are not paintings that seek to explain—they ask to be felt. Rather than representing the external world directly, I channel its emotional resonance — the way a shoreline remembers every tide, or a mountain holds the echo of voices. These works are not landscapes but emotional geographies — spaces we’ve all passed through, whether physically or spiritually. So fasten your seat belts and jump in for the colorful ride!” – Irene Ghanem

Irene Ghanem: « Entre Terre et Mer » / Echoes Between Stillness and Motion

Rooted in the meeting point of land and sea, “Entre Terre et Mer” invites viewers to journey through the liminal spaces where solidity and fluidity converge, where memory and horizon dance together. In this new body of work, Irene Ghanem explores the tension — and harmony — between groundedness and movement, structure and flow, permanence and change. This exhibition is a musical representation of the artist’s deep love of nature, a poetic illustration of images saved during her voyages across the globe, and a colorful expression of her fascination about the contrast but yet fluid continuity between the sea world and the solid ground. At the confluence of matter and movement, “Entre Terre et Mer” explores the shifting terrain between solidity and fluidity, echoing the ever changing dialogue between the natural world and the emotional interior. In this deeply evocative series, Irene Ghanem delves into the liminal space where land dissolves into sea, where memory meets abstraction, and where identity is neither fixed nor adrift — but in constant, generative motion. Having grown up amid the conflicts and upheavals of Lebanon’s history, Ghanem’s art has long been a testament to resilience, joy, and the transformative power of color. Her abstract expressionism draws on a rich tapestry of influences — from the lush Mediterranean landscapes, the undulating coastlines, to the poetic rhythms of the interior, the winds, the tides. Each painting becomes a site of dialogue: between earth’s weight and sea’s breath; between the dense gravity of soil and the luminous expanses of salt air. Drawing from personal histories and collective silences, Ghanem’s work navigates the fragile intersections of identity, trauma, and belonging— offering not answers, but questions held in suspension. She often works in layers—literal and symbolic—building surfaces that bear the weight of what is both seen and withheld. The result is a visual language that is at once tactile and ephemeral, revealing the tension between concealment and exposure.

More than just landscapes, these works are emotional topographies. They map what it means to dwell — in place and in possibility. “Entre Terre et Mer” is an invitation to pause, to wander, and to reflect on the thresholds we inhabit: the soil beneath our feet, the water that laps at our edges; the past that shaped us and the futures we imagine. This exhibition affirms Irene Ghanem as a powerful voice in contemporary art, one who is unafraid to dwell in ambiguity and vulnerability, and who offers viewers a space to reflect, remember, and reconnect. It is a vivid testament to Ghanem’s evolving yet assured painterly language— one that honors the past while forging new emotional terrains through color, movement, and form.

Her work offers not only a visual experience, but a visceral one—an invitation to slow down, to feel, and to listen to the silent language of paint.