What is the Forest?

The Forest is a series of portraits of places and plant species from my childhood forest in Beit Chabab, Mount Lebanon.

It all started with the desire to revisit a very specific rock where we used to play and hide things. It looked like a terrace from above, while its lower part resembled an open mouth. It was the heart of the forest. Standing before it 25 years later was overwhelming, as if a portal had opened and I just kept coming back.

Painting this forest has been lurking in the back of my head for a while. Revisiting it after many years, painting became an urge. It was an excuse to repeatedly return to the site, to the extent where I was no longer able to locate the periphery or the center: was it the studio or the forest?

It's like a stroll through different timelines into abstract fragments of memory where everything is a surprise. Sometimes a familiar scent hits your nose, emanating from the plants, the mud or the stinky stream nearby. Other times, you are happy to meet a new species that wasn’t there during your last visit. All of this takes you back to a very primordial state.

The Forest recollects these places that used to be my immense playground as a kid and canvas as a teenager. Through this exhibition, I somehow find myself repainting my first paintings.

How did you then make this choice?

I chose what I felt had the most poetic or ludic nature, deviating from its original scientific name.

I even allowed myself to rename Wild Oat to ‘How Many Sins?’ in reference to a game we used to play as kids by tossing its seedlings towards a friend. Counting the ones that clung to their clothes would tell us how many sins they did not confess.

Will you continue to explore the forest after the exhibition?

When I started this project in July 2023, I promised myself I would cover a one-year cycle of the forest, so yes, these visits and this work are ongoing.