Habib Fadel, was born in 1968 in Beirut, Lebanon, a place that was once the custodian of a long cosmopolitan, cultural and academic history that earned its capital the name of Paris of the East.

To escape the civil war that pervaded the country between 1975 and 1990, Habib expatriated to Europe where he undertook his academic studies between France and Switzerland, attending the Institut Florimont in Geneva.

In 1987, he returned to Lebanon to get in 1991 his bachelor degree in Business Management from Beirut University College.

Growing up Habib experimented with various disciplines and learned to transform the suffering caused by conflicts into a creative force: 'It is the precariousness of life that touches you so deeply that makes your creative drive so intense' says the artist.

Attracted by all that is Art, he devoted himself to opera singing for a while, taking lessons with vocal coachs from  the Milan Conservatory between 1993 and 1996. 

In 1997, he moved to Los Angeles where he began to explore the film industry, studying directing at the New York Film Academy; meanwhile producing a TV series for NBC network and the Arab World and later on directing several short films that received nominations in the United States.

The 2000s opened a new chapter in Habib's multifaceted artistic research. He started studying painting at the prestigious UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles), which resulted a few years later in the exhibition of his works between Beirut and Paris.

In 2003, he opened his own Studio in Beirut where he devoted himself to his artwork with fierce vitality.

2012 'War, school and faces' Alice Mogabgab Gallery - Beirut: Paintings of faces associated to symbols with powerful expressiveness. Strong, raw colors applied with vigor, with wild brushstrokes that tell of the nightmares and traumas of the war and his childhood. 

2013 'Visages et regards' Galerie Jacques Leegenhoek - Paris: Oil paintings on canvas and paper with unmistakable expressivestrokes made of powerful outbursts of passion and haunting memories.

2015 He set his record at Christie's with 'Dad', oil on canvas, 2012.

2019 'Tao' set up in collaboration with Samia Mehdi Gallery - Beirut: Exhibition dedicated to his son with Tao himself as the sole subject. Spontaneous and feverish portraits with strong colors and lines as if they cut through the faces.

On August 4, 2020, a bomb destroyed Habib's home and studio. Following this tragic episode, the artist leaves Lebanon, a beloved but treacherous homeland, in search of a new land where he can breathe again.

It was however analogue photography that led him to the realization of his new works, creating ultra large format negatives. A very old photographic art, totally handcrafted and realized through purely manual processes that according to Habib recall him painting. It is a long and meticulous creative process, from the moment he takes the picture with his oversized camera, to the moment he develops his negative in his dark room.

He then contact prints every image himself, assisted by his printer. The print is prepared by laying a light-sensitive emulsion made of iron salts and platinum and palladium salts on paper. This monochromatic process enhances the black and white image and is said to last for a thousand years.

2022 'A la recherche de mes racines' Cella Gallery – A series of images and photographs of the Ligurian territory

2023 ‘Anime fiorite’ (Blossoming souls) – 20 photographs as an ode to the beauty and precarity of nature.

Today, Habib Fadel has chosen Santa Margherita Ligure as ”his little slice of heaven” where the peace of his family's harmony and the beauty of nature have brought him back to an art whose protagonists are the earth, the sky and the sea.

His story is one of many returns and estrangements, of memories and passion for freedom expressed in the dramatic and furious power of his creations.

Find out more
• Visit Habib Fadel's Instagram page