Ambivalence Painting

ROULA BECHARA, a Lebanese - French artist that lives and works in Beirut. She took her master degree in Art PLastique from Academie Michel -Ange des beaux arts. She started exhibiting in 1997 and her work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions in Beirut, Manama, Abu- Dhabi, Doha, Dubai and Italy, and was incumbent of Italian artist awards in 2016. She paints on large scale canvases using two mediums oil and acrylic, painting realism and abstract subjects like figures, horses and flowers. a range of colors including fire hues rise to the surface, creating harmonious monochromes melted with gold leaves. In the heart of the canvas, as if emerging from a crack, tender flowers and noble Arabic horses appear. Roula’s art has evolved over time to become more versed in Modern Realism especially with its famous figures mixed with touches of Abstract. “I came to the world one day in April, in a wonderful and tragic corner of the Mediterranean, Lebanon. Those were the days in my land where the smell of flowers was overwhelming and people danced under a wonderful clear blue sky, unaware of the storm that would soon upset everything. That storm was the infamous civil war. My childhood and youth were characterized by these events, by uncertainty about the future , tomorrow we would all still be alive? That’s how I learned early to enjoy the importance of the current moment. Within this context my art was born, my desire, my needs to paint on canvas the great and tragic mixture of events and emotions, wanting in some way to portray and transmit the joy and the fear, the magic and the terror that were engraved in my soul. My artistic journey started out by expressing my feelings of revolt against the war, exalting the strength and beauty of the human being and the ability of the soul to fight and undo the horrors of hatred. I wanted to paint the beauty in all its shapes and colors, in all the styles I am capable of, following a pathway of discovery to the beauty that I have been observing every day since my childhood.” ROULA BECHARA