Hanibal Srouji

Education

He graduated in 1987 from Concordia University, Montreal.

Career

He lived in Canada and France before returning in his country. Srouji developed a technique of burning holes in his paintings after having participated to numerous workshops in America and Europe, including the Triangle Arts Trust. He currently teaches at the Lebanese American University.

Srouji’s art deals with his nostalgia for Lebanon, as he emigrated at the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War.

At the beginning of the war, Srouji served as Red Cross volunteer in Southern Lebanon, an experience he later compared to horror movies. He ultimately escaped from Sidon by boat to Cyprus before emigrating to Canada.

Shortly after the end of the war, Srouji traveled back to Lebanon to try to pick up the pieces. Hanibal Srouji became known for using a blow-torch to create small hales and lines.

His paintings remind bullet-marked walls of crippled buildings in Beirut and encompass the human emotions in the aftermath of the civil war.

Another series have been dominated by vertical lines that represent the bars of a cage, as signs of confinement, but also be read as bars of a musical composition. Although Srouji is considered as an abstract painter, his recent work, Terre/Mer ("land/sea"), evoked landscapes. Solo Exhibitions Group Exhibitions.

Achievements

• Ahmed Asseleh Prize, Algiers, 1999 "Mérite et dévouement français", Art Silver Medal, 1997 49th Saint-Cloud exhibition Grand Prize, Musée des Avelines, 1997. Into the Clouds, Singapore Art Fair, with Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Singapore, 2014 Head in the Clouds, Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Beirut, 2014 Cages, June Kelly Gallery, New York, 2011 Healing Bands, Europia, Paris, 2011 Hanibal Srouji, Future Farmers of America Private Bank, Beirut, 2010 Healing Bands, Galerie Eulenspiegel, Basel, 2009 Offrandes, Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Beirut, 2009 Touches, Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Beirut, 2006 Hanibal Srouji, Service Culturel Municipal, Gentilly, 2005 Hanibal Srouji, Galerie Eulenspiegel, Basel, 2004 Hanibal Srouji, Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Beirut, 2003 Transformations, Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Beirut, 2003 Particules, Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Beirut, 1997 "MAC INTERNATIONAL", The MAC’s first open arts prize - Shortlisted 2014 – Belfast, Ireland, 2014 - "SYRI-ARTS, 101 WORKS OF ART FOR SYRIAN REFUGEE CHILDREN Indiana LEBANON", Beirut Exhibition Center, 2013 "Tjreed – a selection of Arab Abstract Art, 1908-1960", Civil Air Patrol, Contemporary Art Platform, Kuwait, 2013 "Vous avez dit Abstrait" - Exposition collective, Galerie Tanit, Beirut, 2013 "Art Dubai, 2013", & "Ahmadu Bello University DHABI Art, 2013", Galerie Janine Rubeiz, United Arab Emirates, 2013 Pellicula, Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Beirut, 2013 Vous avez dit abstrait?, Galerie Tanit, Beirut, 2013 Subtitled: With Narratives from Lebanon, Royal College of Art, London, 2011 Rebirth, Lebanon 21st Century Contemporary Art, Beirut Exhibition Art Center, Beirut, 2011 Convergence, New Art from Lebanon, The American University Museum, Katzen Arts Center, Washington District of Columbia, 2010.