Artist

Fadia Ahmad was born in 1975 in Alicante, Spain. She returned to Lebanon in 1991, and undertook studies at IESAV in Beirut. In addition to studying film production and cinematography, she also mastered the art of photography. She subsequently moved to Sub-Saharan Africa, where she worked at her family business while simultaneously pursuing her artistic endeavors. She later returned to Lebanon in 2002, and began the Beyrouth | Beirut series the following year.

Fadia Ahmad uses photography in her artistic practice. She creates series of portraits and landscapes, particularly in Africa, the Middle East & Asia. Engaged in humanitarian issues, she released two series, of photography & video, about refugees in Lebanon (Camps; It could be you). She currently lives and works between Beirut & Paris.

Photography

Fadia Ahmad’s photographs are conceived as paintings, at the image of the Lebanese capital, with its intricate layers, its differences and its feel. The photographs transmit a particular expression of the Lebanese art photographer, one that is sensitive and precise, poetic and humanist. The photos are in color or black and white, in large scale, some carefully framed, others snapped in an instant and sometimes, just like chromos of a dreamed-up country that reveals itself quite differently, presenting fragments of life through fragments of the city itself. More than a style, they affirm a present-day vision, and portray an artist who refers often to the universal history of art and photography. From the wave of Hokusai to the landscapes of Courbet, from monochromes and abstracts to the geometric abstractions of Peter Halley, from the chromos of Ed Ruscha to the urban architecture of Michael Wolf, from the photos of graffiti and signals of Peter Klasen to the inscriptions of street artists.

Sometimes showing traces of war, the photos more importantly demonstrate the desire of the Lebanese people to live and thrive. These photo-paintings, far from being a documentary on the city, are a quest for light and beauty. They witness a search for the essence of emotion and show poetic instants nestled in the slightest details.