Leila Beydoun Chalabi

Études et Formation

1986 Se joint à l'Académie Saint Roch, dirigée par Jean Berthole, Paris, FRANCE

1985 S'établit en France

1979 Reprend ses études d'art au Beirut University College, Beyrouth, LIBAN

1955 Études d'art Beirut College for Woman, Beyrouth, LIBAN

Expositions Personnelles

10/2013 Galerie Amsterdam Whiteney, New York, ÉTATS-UNIS

01/2013 Biennale de Londres, ROYAUME-UNI

12/2012 Red Dot Art Fair, Miami, ÉTATS-UNIS

06/2012 Galerie Amsterdam Whiteney, New York, ÉTATS-UNIS

06/2011 Galerie Amsterdam Whiteney, New York, ÉTATS-UNIS

03/2011 Galerie Pall Mall, Londres, ROYAUME-UNI

05/2010 Galerie Dar el Bareh, Manama, BARHREIN

04/2010 Musée d'art contemporain, Las Vegas, ÉTATS-UNIS

01/2010 Publication du Master book – Contemporary art Book

09/2009 Biennale de Chiancinco Toscany, Musée de Chiancinco de Terne, ITALIE

09/2009 Galerie Kettaneh Kooning, Beyrouth, LIBAN

01/2008 Galerie Dar al Funoon, KOWEÏT

01/2006 Galerie Rochane, Beyrouth, LIBAN

02/2004 Galerie Mona Lisa, 32, rue de Varenne Paris 7^e, FRANCE

12/2003 Galerie Dar al Funoon, KOWEÏT

05/2002 Musée I. Kavaleridze Kiev, UKRAINE

04/2002 Compagnie des Arts, Beyrouth, LIBAN

04/2002 Emmanuel Collège, Université de Cambridge, ROYAUME-UNI

12/2000 Galerie Le Cheval de sable, 7, rue François Miron, Paris, FRANCE

07/2000 ARTUEL Foire d'art contemporain, Beyrouth, LIBAN

04/2000 Concours International de Création Artistique, Thème la Provence ou Méditerranée, Fondation Regard de Province, Marseille, FRANCE

02/1999 Galerie Dar al Funoon, KOWEÏT

12/1997 Galerie Rochane, Beyrouth, LIBAN

04/1997 Galerie 17, 17 rue des Grands Augustins, Paris 7^e, FRANCE

03/1996 Petite Galerie, 36 rue de Seine, Paris 6^e, FRANCE

Expositions Collectives

2011 Salon Réalités nouvelles 2011, Paris, FRANCE

2010 Salon Réalités nouvelles 2010, Paris, FRANCE

2009 Salon Réalités Nouvelles 2009, Paris, FRANCE

     Biennale d'art contemporain, Chianciano Terme, ITALIE

2008 Salon Dessin et Aquarelle, Grand Palais, Paris, FRANCE

     Portes ouvertes, atelier Suzanne Forst, Saint Ouen, FRANCE

     Salon Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, FRANCE

     Salon de l'Art Contemporain, Alba, ITALIE

2007 Portes Ouvertes, atelier Suzanne Fost, Saint Ouen, FRANCE

     Salon La Celle, Saint Cloud, FRANCE

2006 60^ème Salon Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, FRANCE

     Portes Ouvertes, atelier Suzanne Fost, Saint Ouen, FRANCE

     Galerie Paul Marin, 83, rue vieille du Temple, Paris 3^e, FRANCE

     Biennale d'art contemporain, Téhéran, IRAN

     Exposition Itinérante Hommage à Fikret Moualla, Paris, FRANCE – Istanbul, TURQUIE

2005 59^ème Salon Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, FRANCE

2004 58^ème Salon Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, FRANCE

2003 57^ème Salon Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, FRANCE

2000 Petite Galerie, 36 rue de Seine Paris 6^e, FRANCE

     EUROP ART, Genève, SUISSE

     Foire internationale d'Art Contemporain, Istanbul, TURQUIE

     12^ème ARTEX – Galerie Traversale, Paris, FRANCE

1999 11^ème ARTEX – Galerie Traversale, Paris, FRANCE

     Lion's Club à la Mairie du VII, Paris, FRANCE

     EUROP ART, Genève, SUISSE

     Journées franco-libanaises, Mairie du XXème, Paris, FRANCE

1998 ARTEX (Japan Contempory Art Association) Galerie Elyette Peyre, Paris 6^e, FRANCE

1997 Musée Sursock, Beyrouth, LIBAN

     ARTEX, Galerie Shagawa Kumin. 1-3-6 Ohio, Shinagawa-Ku, Tokyo, JAPON

     ARTEX à la galerie Elyette Peyre. Paris, FRANCE

L'abysse floral est un lieu des sensibilités multiples, un espace fertile où Leila Chalabi puise ses idées. Ce peintre manie le pinceau à un moment de l'existence qui espère une récolte fertile.

Sous des reflets semi-flavescents, les clôtures ici proposées se dévoilent…parterres matures de corolles, de feuilles et de nopals, sollicitant les béquilles du vent.

Des fleurs naturistes, chaudes et ternes – riches confrontations signifiantes – se mêlent aux multiples mouvements spatiaux de la dyade ciel-terre. Un laboratoire d'explorations dont les détails sont occultés par le spécialiste afin de favoriser les recherches du lecteur.

Car de ces toiles, il y a des choses à dire, du moins à réfléchir. Qui y verrait un signe inaugural plongerait aisément dans l'espace d'une clairvoyance émotionnelle : concrétions de couleurs sur toiles, fluides dans la dynamique de l'esprit

.

C'est en fin d'après-midi d'automne que la signature de Chalabi s'incarne, entre les rayons lumineux du jour et les autres, plus denses, de la Nuit.

Qu'elle soit chargée d'épines, fleurie, rossa, terra ou encore expressive… l'image nous interpelle : elle ne détient pas la clé du portail mais elle sait pertinemment ouvrir des accès par de petites portes, les plus complexes d'ailleurs.

La perception heuristique des textures et des contours confirme le dessein d'une ébauche en route vers des voies durables.

Quant à l'œil, élément primordial de capture, il décèle une approche « humanisée », dont la fleur servirait de passage ; drame et souffrances se confondent dans une poésie latente… Pseudo-abstraction subtile.

Alors le jeu des sens se place dans son véhicule–vie, désorganisé puis organisé, déterré de la pensée première imprévisible et colorée… Une main figée se dénoue, chargée d'émotions : elle se dresse au front de nos miroirs, métaphore naturelle du germe, caressant les papiers de nos sens confirmés et sollicitant tous nos autres sens à élucider.

I was looking for a contemporary way in my art to express an indescribable feeling: the untouchable, the end.

It all started with the flower. In a long, tedious study, which lasted four years, season after season, flower after flower, I was about to feel as if I was part of the flower and it was part of me.

Studying it from the outside was a way to get familiar with the subject, like a zooming effect. The techniques of drawing permitted details to reveal themselves. Then, I looked inside the flower, observed the nerves, and examined the pistils. The leaves became a subject on their own, until the cell itself became the center of the study.

The abstract developed from the figurative object and through lines I went into the mystery and the unknown as well as through all the mediums: encore de chine, gouache. Flowers were my life.

After a few exhibitions, the need to change, the need to evolve pushed me out if that comfortable field. When consulting books and documents, searching for an association with the flower, I found the butterfly.

It was an enchanting discovery, a charming doorway to a new world of air and lightness.

The pencil, encore de chine, was the first too for sketching. Repetition. Each and every time more butterflies. As if I was looking for something unseen yet.

But my inner self had not spoken yet. I was hoping to reach the ephemeral: the sensation of life which will end soon, beauty bound to disappear. After a frantic period of work, nothing satisfactory resulted. The illustration was not the objective. Through much frustration, trying to clarify my thoughts and feelings, I continued to experiment. Not one insect was like another.

The moment came when at last; I was pleased with my brushes. It was a cherished time of amazement. Lines of a butterfly could convey the finesse of combinations. Colors were touches of magic and charm.

It is impossible to reach, touch, or hold a butterfly. A flower is there to engage all senses, but the rapid fluttering of a butterfly can be sensed but an instant. It vanishes as quickly, and if by any chance you hold one in your hand, beware: it might just turn into dust.

Ashes to ashes.
Dust to dust.

Leila Chalabi's hands are so familiar with the oil, brushes, térébenthine, and canvas. They have become her tool of expression. An exhibition of her latest works to catch the glimpse of changing light on patterns based on butterflies. And colours burst out.

« It's a subtle matter, a fine relation between what comes out on the canvas, and the realty to deceit.

It's a struggle between tensions, circumstances and the spirit unfolding with brushes. If it is not my environment, crisis, wars, my body antagonizes my will. Horribl things, skeletons, death, suffering, greed, injustice… They surround us all and I will not use them.

Nostalgia. The past is far away; I am in the present and I accept what I have.

My canvas is my basic grounding structure; colours are my language. It is my way to express and show my understanding of existence.

I look for harmony in my colours. Even the ugliest of feelings, violence, grieving, pain… will have to be shown in a sense of equilibrium, of completeness in the space given.

I add to life a touch of beauty and light. »

Leila Chalabi's hands are so familiar with the oil, brushes, térébenthine, and canvas. They have become her tool of expression. Her lastest works focus on catching the glimpse of changing light on patterns based on butterflies. And colours burst out.

She had finished her Fine Art degree Beirut University College, and when she moved to Paris, she joined for many years the atelier Jean Berthole where students worked on composition, colors and where the teacher gave an opinion on their work and progress.
This interaction between Jean Berthole and Leila gave her an insight on how the history of visual art had developed in the 20^th century. Jean Berthole, born in 1903, was a teacher who had the luxury of exploring with his peers, the path of cubism, fauvism, surealism, and abstraction. Leila learned first hand the process until she felt comfortable with her style in abstractive forms and search for interests in subjects.

She started exhibiting her works in the late Nineties, first in collective exhibits in France at the “Galerie Elyette Peyre”, in Paris, then in Japan at the Artex exchange program between French and Japanese artists. She then jumped into a personal exhibition at the “Petite Galerie” in Paris.
In the year 2000, she went to Istambul, Turkey for a collective exhibition, then Geneva, Switzerland for the Europ'art. In that year she won an award at the Foundation Regard de Provence, Chateau Borely, Marseilles, France, on the theme “Mediterranean”.
In the 2000 decade, Leila exhibited her works in galleries in Kiev, Ukraine, Cambrige, United Kingdom, Paris, France and Kuwait at Dar al Funoon. In Lebanon she exhibited in the galleries “Rochane”, “Compagnie des Arts” and “Kettaneh Kooning”.
She participated in many collective exhibitions, the most recurrent and important is the “Realités Nouvelles” in France, as it is the last artists' group to propose works curated by a collegial team of artists. She proposed some of her works at the Chiancino, Italy; Museum of Contemporary Art at Las Vegas, USA.
Her most recent collective exhibit was in New York City, at the “Amsterdam Whitney” gallery.

Modern master Henri Matisse proclaimed "A picture must possess a real power to generate light, and for a long time now I've been conscious of expressing myself through light, or rather in light." Similar to Matisse, contemporary artist Leila Chalabi uses brilliant colors to express one's understanding and experiences with the dynamic and necessary phenomenon of light. Ms. Chalabi's uses mixed media on canvas in her Patterns and Light series to expose the variegated formations of this natural phenomenon. At the same time, Ms Chalabi shows that light's diverse presence in turn affects our own existence by making one's experience with the world change in accordance to light's appearance.

Ms. Chalabi's series takes the viewer through a multifarious journey filled with a plethora of patterns, perspectives and colours. Each different interpretation of light is meant to express abstractly in the inherent multi-dimensionality of light's essence: never static, light is constantly transforming itself and subsequent surrounding objects through time and space. In her series, Ms. Chalabi uses a cool color palette juxtaposed with hints of bright yellow hues and deep scarlet reds to mold organically loose forms, creating allover compositions with no beginning or end. Chalabi's expansive compositions speak to the limitless existence of light because in nature, one is unable to physically experience light's truthful origin. In her Patterns and Light Diptych, the lower panel of the canvas is filled with luscious blues and greens, where swooping lines delicately undulate, mimicking natural light's rhythmic wave. Ms. Chalabi's cool curvilinear waves transform into organic bursts of warm yellow ellipses spotted with cool blues and vibrant reds in Patterns and Light Triptych. These colorful organic forms similarly follow light's undulating pattern throughout the middle register of the canvas. Ms. Chalabi's series explodes with a diverse colour palette and shows that the brilliance of colour is minimal without its necessary counterpart in light. Ms. Chalabi's Patterns and Light series permits the time to experience a fleeting phenomenon by allowing one to contemplate and experience light's beautifully diverse expression.

This award-winning contemporary artist works primarily in France. Leila Chalabi's art exhibits extensively internationally, including exhibitions in France and New York City. The presence of her works in prestigious collections across the world affirms her continually expanding reputation.

Ruthie Tucker, Executive Director, Curator, Amsterdam Whitney Galery