Written by LIAM SIBAI

Born in 1960 in Beirut, Katya Traboulsi is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist whose practice is focused on recent Lebanese history and popular culture. Traboulsi’s interest in art ¹ was first informed by her grandmother’s paintings, which led her to consider pursuing graduate studies in fine arts. She envisioned a path in painting through studies in Paris, after completing her foundational education in Lebanon. However, her father's objections redirected her journey. Instead, she pursued Interior Design at the Lebanon School of Art in 1983.

Following her graduation, Katya Traboulsi embarked on diverse career paths. Her creative journey drove her exploration of art galleries and exhibitions, keenly attuned to the evolving cultural landscape ². Katya Traboulsi ran her own printing press, Systeco, where she also worked as a production manager from 1982 till 1988. After organizing a variety of different exhibitions for her painterly works in 1986 ³ , Katya married Jean Traboulsi in 1989.

A photo of the artist Katya Traboulsi with her father ⁴ on her wedding day became an iconic photograph of the Civil War, taken by photographer Roger Moukarzel ⁵ . In the photo, Katya Traboulsi stands in her wedding dress, holding her bouquet and linking arms with her father; strikingly, the background shows barrels and sandbags piled high. These were often used during the war for protection, and contextualize what was a common wedding day snapshot.

Later that year, in 1989, the newlyweds relocated to Dubai. There, Katya Traboulsi worked at an advertising agency, Publigraphics, from 1990 until 1993. She then taught at the Lycee Francais in Dubai for 15 years. In 2000, Katya opened the Katya Traboulsi Ateliers in Dubai and then later in Beirut ⁶. It was an institution that helped many emerging young artists progress in their careers. Moving to Dubai opened the cultural sphere to a whole new network of institutions and individuals.

As for Traboulsi’s artistic timeline, it can be divided into two defining periods: the authorial expressionist phase of her earlier career, and the later period marked by collaboration, political engagement, and multidisciplinary approaches. These periods interweave in works spanning the mid-2000s to the early 2010s, reflecting the rich tapestry of her artistic evolution.

During her early period, Traboulsi aligned herself with the Figuration Libre movement, an artistic wave that emerged in 1980s France ⁷, characterized by the use of bold lines, intricate patterns, and whimsically drawn human figures and environments. These early works were largely acrylic paintings ⁸. Katya’s work during this period was created as part of her journey of healing and recovery from the tumultuous Lebanese civil war, a transformative period that deeply influenced her artistic expression. Many of her works present complex, and intense, themes that mirror her own interpretation of life during the civil war. Katya Traboulsi continued to produce work in the manner of Figuration Libre in the 2000s and early 2010s, but began to engage in more pressing and political issues which she had previously avoided ⁹. Such issues included woman’s rights ¹⁰ as in Forbidden Words (2006), and the Lebanese civil war in Age of Rage (2012) ¹¹ .

The following decade ushered the beginning of Traboulsi’s collaborative work, inspired by literature and journalism. Continuing in the aesthetics of Figuration Libre, she painted diverse pieces inspired by essays written in 2011 ¹² . This was her first attempt at collaborative work within the artistic sphere. Her second was in 2013, when she curated the work of different Photojournalists ¹³ that were active during the Lebanese civil war in a body of work titled Generation War. Traboulsi documented history in a manner that emphasized these individuals’ experiences at the time ¹⁴. They were presented either in texts by the journalists or in speech, during the exhibition. Expressing her collaborative artistic philosophy, and referencing people who had documented and experienced war; she once stated, “I’m telling people's stories, not mine." ¹⁵

With her most recent projects, from the mid-2010s and on, Traboulsi worked in collaboration with artisans to produce works that valorized ¹⁶ different national and local artistic traditions. One such project that can be viewed as a landmark in her collaborative work was Perpetual Identities. The project was comprised of a series of medium sized missile mortars, handmade either by the artist or artisans commissioned by her. For a time, the project was an ongoing work of art. Traboulsi would make or commission two or three mortars, sell them to collectors, and then earn the money to make more mortars ¹⁷, hence the perpetuity of Perpetual Identities.

The initial inspiration of this project was a gifted mortar shell sleeve from the 1975 Lebanese civil war that she had received for her birthday ¹⁸ . Considering how such an object was responsible for death, she created art around it that would idolize and pay tribute to those who fought against an ‘enemy’. The idea behind Perpetual Identities was to turn these mortars which were symbols of war, into symbols of peace, and embodiments of identity and diversity ¹⁹. Each of the mortars featured imagery and the utilization of materials from a diversity of 46 symbolic cultures, hence the importance of identity in Perpetual Identities. This is unsurprising considering that in a 2023 interview about Perpetual Identities, Traboulsi talked about how much she valued diversity ²⁰.

Perpetual Identities was a return to political topics in Lebanon after the civil war. For instance, the Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation (DAF) owns two of those mortars which are from the series concerned with Lebanese politics. The first, titled: Perpetual Identities, Political Lebanon, 2016, is concerned with Lebanese political parties, many of whom were active during the civil war. The artist collaged together the logos of the different parties such as the Phalangists, the Lebanese Communist Party, the Lebanese Resistance Detachment party or Afwaj al-Muqawamah al-Lubnaniyyah (Amal) in Arabic, and the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), onto the mortar. These logos appear either as graffiti or as posters. The other mortar, an undated piece titled Perpetual Identities, is the inverse of the former as it is a collage of symbols having to do with Lebanese civil society and the October ¹⁷ revolution which opposed much of the political parties whose logos she had depicted on her artwork. The second one, titled: Perpetual Identities, Political Lebanon, 2016 is rendered in a much grittier and rougher manner. However, the imagery of the second mortar is more polished. The two mortars include iconography, which evoke a sense of heterogeneity and crowdedness. This is a style of art common in Lebanon, such as the works of artists like Walid Zbib and Maroun Baghdadi, as articulated by philosopher Fares Chalabi in Baghdadi…The Sectarian-Image ²¹ .

Katya Traboulsi’s work cannot be pinned down to one technique, style, or subject matter. She has made use of different kinds of materials from acrylics to light-boxes ²² , brass and resin, and iron ²³ . Traboulsi has produced work that is in line with different currents of expressionism, conceptual art, and pop art, respectively. She has tackled an array of themes ranging from celebrity to music 24 , to ethno-national identity, anatomy ²⁵, freedom, and war. Her most recent exhibition at Saleh Barakat Gallery in Beirut, Rej3a Ya Mama (2022), largely consisted of ironworks inspired by Lebanese pick-up trucks ²⁶. She showcases the vivid designs typical of Lebanese trucks, employing bold hues and cultural symbols. Her iron creations honor Tripoli, merging abstract motifs, like florals and birds, with traditional calligraphy, conveying cultural values.

Beyond her art, Katya Traboulsi’s enduring legacy extends to cultural enrichment through collaboration, commissioning, and institutional support. A dedicated advocate of artistic expression, equality, and diversity, she does everything with a "scream of peace" ²⁷, as she likes to say. In 2016, Katya returned to her roots in Beirut, where she currently resides and continues to contribute to the vibrant tapestry of the art world ²⁸.

Edited by WAFA ROZ & ELSIE LABBAN

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Notes:

Baghdadi… The Sectarian Image. YouTube. American University of Beirut Fine Arts and Art History Department, 2021. 

Nassar, Nelida. “Cross-out ‘Generation War’ in Favor of ‘The War Generation’ at the 2013
Beirut Art Fair.” ART & CULTURE TODAY, February 7, 2016.  https://artandculturetoday

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Sources:

¹ Florence Pia G. Yu, “Katya Traboulsi: I Am Incomplete without Art,” Lifestyle – Gulf News,
July 25, 2019, https://gulfnews.com/lifestyle

² Liam Sibai, Interview with Katya Traboulsi, other, Dalloul Art Foundation, August 2023.

³ Florence Pia G. Yu, “Katya Traboulsi: I Am Incomplete without Art,” Lifestyle – Gulf News,
July 25, 2019, https://gulfnews.com/lifestyle 

⁴ Liam Sibai, Interview with Katya Traboulsi, other, Dalloul Art Foundation, August 2023.

⁵ Nelida Nassar, “Cross-out ‘Generation War’ in Favor of ‘The War Generation’ at the 2013
Beirut Art Fair,” ART & CULTURE TODAY, February 7, 2016. https://artandculturetoday

⁶ Kalsi, Jyoti. “Beirut’s Bullet Holes Tell Stories.” Arts Culture – Gulf News, October 29, 2018. https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/arts-culture/beiruts-bullet-holes-tell-stories-1.1842501.

⁷ “Figuration Libre,” Academic Accelerator, accessed August 5, 2023, https://academic- accelerator.com/encyclopedia/figuration-libre.https://www.carredartistes.com

⁸ Liam Sibai, Interview with Katya Traboulsi, other, Dalloul Art Foundation, August 2023.

⁹ Liam Sibai, Interview with Katya Traboulsi, other, Dalloul Art Foundation, August 2023.

¹⁰ “Kuwait, May 2015: Exhibition Abolish 153 at Contemporary Art Platform,” Abolish Article
153, December 10, 2017, http://abolish153.org/events

¹¹ Liam Sibai, Interview with Katya Traboulsi, other, Dalloul Art Foundation, August 2023.

¹² “Of Others: An Exhibition by Katya Traboulsi,” artofthemideastdotcom.wordpress.com,
October 14, 2011, https://artofthemideastdotcom.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/of-others-an-exhibition-by-katya-traboulsi/.

¹³ “Katya Traboulsi,” Artscoops, accessed July 24, 2023, https://artscoops.com/artist-details/traboulsi-katya

¹⁴ Liam Sibai, Interview with Katya Traboulsi, other, Dalloul Art Foundation, August 2023.

¹⁵ Liam Sibai, Interview with Katya Traboulsi, other, Dalloul Art Foundation, August 2023.

¹⁶ Liam Sibai, Interview with Katya Traboulsi, other, Dalloul Art Foundation, August 2023.

¹⁷ Liam Sibai, Interview with Katya Traboulsi, other, Dalloul Art Foundation, August 2023.

¹⁸ "Katya A. Traboulsi at Leila Heller Gallery." Selections Arts Magazine, May 3, 2023. http://www.leilaheller.com

¹⁹ Liam Sibai, Interview with Katya Traboulsi, other, Dalloul Art Foundation, August 2023

²⁰ Katya Traboulsi WAAW Women Artists’ Art Week World, YouTube (YouTube, 2023),

²¹ Baghdadi… The Sectarian Image, YouTube (American University of Beirut Fine Arts and Art
History Department, 2021),

²² “Lot 27: Katya Traboulsi (Lebanese, b. 1960) - Invaluable.Com,” Invaluable, accessed July 22,

2023, https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/katya-traboulsi-lebanese-b-1960-27-c-77641318bd. 

²³ Anastasia Nysten, “Rej3a Ya Mama • Selections Arts Magazine,” Selection Arts Magazine, June 1, 2023, https://selectionsarts.com

²⁴ Liam Sibai, Interview with Katya Traboulsi, other, Dalloul Art Foundation, August 2023.

²⁵ “Lot 27: Katya Traboulsi (Lebanese, b. 1960) - Invaluable.Com,” Invaluable, accessed July 22, 2023, https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/katya-traboulsi-lebanese-b-1960-27-c-77641318bd. 

²⁶ “Katya Traboulsi, Rej3a Ya Mama,” AgendaCulturel, accessed July 24, 2023,   https://www.agendaculturel.com 

²⁷ Katya Traboulsi WAAW Women Artists’ Art Week World, YouTube (YouTube, 2023),

²⁸ “Katya Traboulsi,” Agial Art Gallery & Saleh Barakat Gallery - Traboulsi, Katya, accessed August 5, 2023, http://salehbarakatgallery.com

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