Written by LIAM SIBAI

Marwan Chamaa is a Lebanese-American artist born in Beirut in 1964.¹ He was deeply influenced by the visual arts and notions of commercialism throughout his life, a blend largely shaped by his father's career. His father worked as an importer and trader of art supplies², a profession that combines the worlds of art and business. This unique family background played a crucial role in Chamaa's development as a pop artist³ Pop art emerged in the UK and the USA in the mid-1950s as a reaction to consumerism, mass media, and popular culture.

Building on this foundation, Chamaa's early experiences immersed him in the realm of art and commerce. As a child, he acted in several television commercials for products his father imported. One such commercial was for Penrex, a stationery supplier mostly known for their ink cartridges, widely used across Lebanon during the late 20^th century. This exposure to the commercial world was complemented by Chamaa’s creative use of art supplies his father brought home. He often produced drawings and sketches on notebooks, mirroring his father, who frequently designed logos and visuals for his business. These formative experiences played a significant role in shaping Chamaa's artistic journey.

Also, Marwan Chamaa's upbringing was significantly shaped by the German language, an essential aspect of both his personal and professional life. The Chamaa family predominantly communicated in German at home, a preference influenced by his father's frequent trips to Germany to import art supplies. This constant engagement fostered a strong connection with the German culture and language. Chamaa even attended the German International School in Beirut, reinforcing his linguistic skills. In 1975, with the onset of the Lebanese civil war, the Chamaa family relocated to Munich. However, Chamaa returned to Beirut to pursue higher education in 1982, just days before the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

He started a two-year program in Graphic Design at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and later studied Advertising at the Beirut University College (BUC), now known as the Lebanese American University (LAU). Both degrees included courses in painting and foundational fine arts skills, which informed Chamaa’s formal artistic education. Still, during that period, Chamaa chose to keep his focus on graphic design.

While at BUC, Chamaa and fellow artist Abdallah Ghraib, along with Sami Al-Natour, a Business student at the time, started Art Factory. This graphic design firm took design commissions but did not work on publishing them – a rarity in the design and advertising world at the time. This definitive aspect of the company changed when Chamaa relocated to the United States of America and could no longer run the company.

In 1989, Chamaa attended the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC, studying Computer Arts and Computer Graphics. Once an independent college, the Corcoran School of Art became part of George Washington’s Columbian College of Arts and Sciences in 2014. In his studies, Marwan Chamaa acquired skills in digital image production. He mastered using emerging computer technologies, including image scanners, which were novel then.

Chamaa's education included numerous fine arts courses, where he learned to integrate ready-made objects into his canvases. These objects were prefabricated, often mass-produced, and isolated from their intended use. By incorporating ready-made objects into his art, Chamaa elevated mundane items into a fine art form, challenging traditional views on creativity and marking a pivotal moment in his artistic journey.

In the early stage of his career, Marwan Chamaa's artistic style predominantly focused on abstract art in contrast to his later signature style. This phase is exemplified in his Scriptures series⁴, which depict illegible scribbles made up of mixed-media cardboard mounted on wood. Nonetheless, he began incorporating commercial and consumerist content themes, a motif that would become more pronounced later in his career. For instance, in his 1989 mixed media artwork, Verses, he integrated the cover of Salman Rushdie's novel, Satanic Verses, blending layers of abstracted shapes with emerging elements of pop art.

Chamaa revisited this fusion of abstraction and pop art much later, notably in his 2022 work Red White and Blue⁵. This series, including pieces like A Sunday, 2022, showcased broad, congested strokes of bright red paint superimposed on gritty depictions of American flags. Another piece, which is part of Chamaa's Lost & Found series, is Breaking News, 2022. It features cut-out newspaper headlines and magazine cover pages, with images of mid-20^th-century modern furniture. Adopting mass media, featuring famous figures, and integrating iconic mid-century industrialized furniture demonstrates Chamaa’s pop art style. These works underscored Chamaa's evolving technique, merging abstract expressionism with the vivid, commercial imagery characteristic of pop art.⁶.

Marwan Chamaa describes himself as a "Liberal pop artist," reflecting his approach to integrating mass-produced commodities and brand names with various artistic methods beyond their commercial nature. His repertoire also includes mural painting. Chamaa painted onto lengthy horizontal surfaces, often telling a culturally significant narrative⁷, as seen in his 2012 project La Dolce Vita series. 

Executed with oil paint, La Dolce Vita mural comprises 12 canvases, amounting to a total of 22 meters in length; it is one of Lebanon's largest murals. The work unfolds a narrative of a poor girl seeking ‘La Dolce Vita’ or ‘the sweet life’ with her affluent boyfriend, set against the backdrop of Lebanon's opulent consumerist landscape. 

Expanding his exploration of commercialism through art, Chamaa incorporated the technique of collage blended with paint into the La Dolce Vita series. The artist cuts out a variety of preexisting images, usually from newspapers and magazines, and pastes them together onto the same canvas⁸. From its early beginnings in France, Collage art was used to engage commercialism and mass production themes. As part of the La Dolce Vita series, Chamaa paints, rather than cut and paste, several brand logos, such as Martini and 7up, in La Dolce Overdose, 2012, and Rolls Royce, Chanel, and Tictac in Royal Flush, 2011⁹. He paints these logos identical to how they appear on the original products¹⁰. Chamaa’s technique makes the painted logos look like photo-collage, as the artist depicts them as preexisting images.

Notably, Chamaa is concerned mainly with consumerism in places such as the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Many of the brand names and logos that were used in La Dolce Vita, such as Canada Dry in In the Eyes of the Paparazzi, 2012, and Crush in Coming Clean, 2013, were written in Arabic, as the names of these products would often appear when sold across the Arab world¹¹.

A perfect example of Chamaa’s distinct style is New York Mon Amour, 2017, part of the Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation (DAF) in Beirut. This artwork is a vibrant and bustling collage-style painting that combines elements of pop culture with an urban scene. The central figure is Hello Kitty, a widely recognized cat-like character, depicted in her usual white and red bow without a mouth. She is superimposed over a colorful cityscape alive with neon signs and advertisements, reminiscent of a downtown scene in a major city like Tokyo or New York. Bruce Lee, another famous martial arts figure, is depicted to the left, topless and dressed in a black Shaolin. He is executing a high kick that aligns with Hello Kitty's head, adding a dynamic element to the piece. Bruce Lee and Hello Kitty¹² are two pop culture phenomena associated with the Far East, reflecting Chamaa’s interest in peripheral commercialism. The work also features text in Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese. The Arabic text consists of a speech bubble spoken by the massive central Hello Kitty head saying “Kol yawm Kimchi," which translates to “Kimchi, every day." Kimchi is a Korean dish consisting of salted and fermented vegetables.

Additionally, Chamaa is quite interested in the notion of transliteration, where a word or sentence in one language is written in the letters of another language¹³. In New York Mon Amour, Kimchi is transliterated into Arabic rather than directly translated. Another example can be seen in Love-Orange, 2023, part of Love Parade. In this project, the word love is written in the Arabic alphabet on different canvases¹⁴. The meeting and cross-pollination of cultures are essential for Chamaa’s work. It can also be seen in projects like Mashrou3 LuLu, 2014¹⁵, and Chagrin D'Amour – The Musical, 2015¹⁶.

Marwan Chamaa's life and eclectic, versatile art career embody a unique blend of artistic vision and cultural diversity. His multifaceted approach to art is unsurprising, considering Chamaa’s multicultural upbringing and cosmopolitan adult life. He has spent time in Beirut, Munich, New York, and Washington, DC, where the artist currently resides and works.

Edited by Wafa Roz & Elsie Labban

Sources:

¹ “Marwan Chamaa,” Cultural Narratives, October 20, 2022, www.culturalnarratives.net.
² Liam Sibai and Marwan Chamaa, Interview with Marwan Chamaa, other, December 26, 2023.
³ “Marwan Chamaa: Presentation,” Artsper | Buy Original Art Online - Artworks: Paintings, Photos and More, accessed December 29, 2023, www.artsper.com/ca/.
⁴ “Old Collection,” Marwan Chamaa, accessed December 29, 2023, www.marwanchamaa.com.
⁵ “Red, White, & Blue,” Marwan Chamaa, accessed December 29, 2023, www.marwanchamaa.com.
⁶ Kerwin, “What Inspired Pop Art? 7 Ways the Movement Rebelled,” op art acrylic paintings by UK artist Kerwin Blackburn, August 10, 2023, https://www.bykerwin.com/
⁷ “Mural - the History and the Meaning | Widewalls,” Wide Walls, accessed December 29, 2023, www.widewalls.ch/
⁸ “Collage,” Tate, accessed December 29, 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/
⁹ “La Dolce Vita,” Marwan Chamaa, accessed December 29, 2023, https://www.marwanchamaa.com/
¹⁰ "1000 Logos - the Famous Logos and Popular Company Logos in the World," 1000 Logos - The Famous and Popular company logos in the World, January 10, 2024, https://1000logos.net/
¹¹ “Name These American Brands Spelled in Arabic - Ramblin’ Randy,” Ramblin’ Randy - Official Travel Blog of The Sultan of Slowjamastan, May 25, 2019, https://www.ramblinrandy.com
¹² “Hello Kitty,” Encyclopædia Britannica, December 7, 2023, https://www.britannica.com
¹³ Transliteration | English meaning - Cambridge dictionary, accessed December 29, 2023, https://dictionary.cambridge.org
¹⁴ “The Love Parade,” Marwan Chamaa, accessed December 29, 2023, www.marwanchamaa.com
¹⁵  “Mashrou3 Lulu,” Marwan Chamaa, accessed December 29, 2023, www.marwanchamaa.com
¹⁶ “Chagrin D’Amour - The Musical,” Marwan Chamaa, accessed December 29, 2023, www.marwanchamaa.com 

Bibliography

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“Marwan Chamaa.” Cultural Narratives, October 20, 2022. www.culturalnarratives.net.

“Marwan Chamaa: Presentation.” ▷ Artsper | Buy Original Art Online - Artworks: Paintings, Photos and More. Accessed December 29, 2023. www.artsper.com/ca/.

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“Mural - the History and the Meaning | Widewalls.” Wide Walls. Accessed December 29, 2023. www.widewalls.ch/.

“Name These American Brands Spelled in Arabic - Ramblin’ Randy.” Ramblin’ Randy - Official Travel Blog of The Sultan of Slowjamastan, May 25, 2019. www.ramblinrandy.com.

“Old Collection.” Marwan Chamaa. Accessed December 29, 2023. www.marwanchamaa.com.

“Red, White, & Blue.” Marwan Chamaa. Accessed December 29, 2023. www.marwanchamaa.com.

Sibai, Liam, and Marwan Chamaa. Interview with Marwan Chamaa. Other, December 26, 2023.

Transliteration | English meaning - Cambridge dictionary. Accessed December 29, 2023. dictionary.cambridge.org.