Painter Chafa Ghaddar’s explorations in the fresco technique reveal uncharted conceptual paths within the historical method of mural painting. Ghaddar finds room for experimentation through the introduction of new tensions between durability and impermanence, figuration and abstraction, and stasis and variability. Ghaddar examines the relationships between fresco painting and the body through its classical association with figurative painting and the union of the color with the surface as a visceral entity. Dislodging her surfaces from the wall like skins, and rolling and folding the corporeal panels to produce cracks and shadow, Ghaddar welcomes uncontrolled and unexpected conditions that enables new contemporary possibilities.

Land of myth and legend, where five thousand years of history have been written, nerve centre of relations between the Arab world and the West throughout its history, Lebanon has passed through troubled times since its creation as an independent state.
Its strategic position, the source of its prestige, is also a source of envy and destruction. In recent years the country, after recovering from a long civil war and several successive wars, has experienced an unprecedented economic and social crisis. The demonstrations which have sprung up en masse have encountered opposition from the political class.
On 4 August 2020, the blast from the explosion in the port of Beirut completely devastated the city, leaving hundreds of people dead and hundreds of thousands injured and displaced. Faced with the disaster, the Boghossian Foundation immediately came to the aid of the victims. The idea was born to present an exhibition at the Villa Empain in 2021 to give a voice to artists, widely affected by the event,
The exhibition explores the spectrum of the practices and reactions by artists faced both with these recent years of débâcle and with the event of the explosion and its consequences for the people and for the city, of which the ruined districts are so many testimonies.
Confronted with massive shortages, dissolving public services, devaluation, border conflicts, the pervasive trauma of a people out of breath and consumed by anger or despair, artists, native or having lived in Lebanon, have created works, directly or indirectly related to the situation of recent years.
Conceived in partnership with the Pompidou Centre, the exhibition includes a body of works from the Centre’s exceptional collections.
How will it end? circuit offers an unprecedented dialogue between works from the Pompidou Centre collection and pieces by Lebanese artists of all generations, especially younger ones, produced in recent years or following the tragedy, and tracing out, between despair

and gentleness, exiles and new anchorages, possible paths to the future. The ensemble brings together drawings, sculptures, installations, paintings, photographs and videos.

Ghaddar’s practice, using both traditional and modern techniques, can be seen as an investigation into the characteristics of time and its manifestation in objects, spaces and memory, using fragile frescos as the main inspiration for this research. Following the explosion, she felt a need to reconnect with nature, to dissociate herself from the city. This translates into the series of frescoes dedicated to the cacti in her garden. She explains that “gardening hooks her back into life”.

Following the explosion, Chafa Ghaddar felt a need to reconnect with nature, to dissociate herself from the city. This translates into the series of frescoes dedicated to the cacti in her garden. She explains that, from Dubai, ‘gardening hooks her back into life’, and that moreover ‘cacti have few needs’.

Destruction, be it physical or cognitive has been highly normalized in Lebanon. Over the past 40 years it got endoctrinated in our minds as part of everyday lives.
How do artists witness, transform and transcribe the experience of destruction in their work?
Each week, one artist will take over this Instagram account to share, highlight, question and reflect on the notion of destruction.

Chafa Ghaddar presents a poetic performance made of images, texts, voice recordings and videos. You can check her intervention in the highlights section.

In "Blue: more than a colour . . " Chafa Ghaddar and Jill Magi move the traditional artist talk into another space: something between a slide show, a poetry reading, a text, and an exhibition in itself. The performance shuffles images and texts from both artists' archives, notebooks, and studios. Blue emerges as its own character, presence as two voices make a third space of shared thinking, making, and being.

Chafa Ghaddar and writer Kevin Jones discuss the Ghaddar’s art practice, exploring the ideas that shaped the exhibition, their ongoing conversation through a journey of mentorship and the new possibilities and ideas that have emerged through Critical Practice Programme.

Tashkeel’s Autumn 2020 season programme begins on 22 September with a solo exhibition by Chafa Ghaddar entitled ‘Recesses’. The exhibition shines a new light on the ancient mural-making technique of fresco by challenging the “wall” and the idea of completion.
‘Recesses’, which runs until 26 November, is a body of work resulting from a year of research and experimentation, which combines paper, painting, fresco and other media as a territory of skin, offering viewers an intimate and challenging experience of touch, colour, texture and material.
Ghaddar’s problematisation of the fresco technique in her work is informed by extensive research in this historical technique that she started studying in 2012 while in Florence, Italy. It was created with mentorship from arts writer Kevin Jones, and artist, critic and educator Jill Magi.

Wrapping up season 1 of Tavan Studio in Conversation with an in-depth chat about frescoes, surfaces, decay, and time with artist and muralist @chafaghaddar . Chafa walks us through her journey of observing the natural and also distressed landscapes of Lebanon and the transition to the heat and crystal blue pool surfaces of Dubai and how that has impacted her fresco thought process and work. Chafa also opens up about her experience as a new mother and gives us a very honest and raw depiction of her time spent during the lockdown.

In August 2015 I attended a camp in al Qusair, Egypt, organized by ADEF, the Arab Digital Expression Foundation. In an open and constructive environment, workshops were developed to create experiences that enhance creative self-expression, self-exploration and critical thinking for youth.
As a participant, I developed a site-specific workshop where people were invited to interfere on stones picked from the site, explore different types of intervention and reflect on the notion of trace.
In an attempt to question durability, stability and ephemerality, these stones where left on site embracing other natural stones already existing in the field.