Haibat Balaa Bawab (b.1952) is a Lebanese artist renowned for her pioneering work in collage art. Through her collages and oil paintings, she weaves narratives of Beirut, Lebanon, its people, mountains, and diverse beauty. Born and raised in Beirut, the city continues to shape her artistic language, as daily scenes inspire her distinctive visual style.
Balaa’s work centers on assemblages of fragments from magazines, stamps, and bills, which she uses to map the cultural fabric of the city. Combining figurative imagery with abstract elements, she draws on memories of village life, harvests, and bygone eras. Recurring motifs such as carpets, rugs, and oriental tapestries evoke serenity and nostalgia, while her subjects reflect a wide range of social strata, from the opulent homes of the haute bourgeoisie to the vibrant floral patterns associated with peasants, refugees, and beggars. Through cut-outs, she creates markers of identity and status.
“My artworks in collage and oil painting vary, encompassing cityscapes, local landscapes, heritage, and nostalgia—reflections of daily life and topical issues. I’m inspired by my surroundings. Even when I travel, my work mirrors my environment and mood,” Balaa states. Her surroundings consistently permeate her artistic process and manifest throughout her work.
Haibat Balaa received her BA in Fine Arts in 1975 from Beirut University College (now the Lebanese American University). She taught for 17 years at the Lebanese American University and served as Fine Arts Coordinator at the American University of Science and Technology (AUST) from 2001 to 2022.
Balaa has held numerous solo exhibitions in Lebanon, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi, and participated in collective exhibitions locally and internationally, including at AUB, LAU, ALBA, Haigazian, Station Des Arts, the Sursock Museum, and the Grand Palais de Paris, as well as exhibitions in Cairo, Bahrain, and Kuwait. In 2019, she participated in the 8th Beijing Biennale China.
She is a member of the Lebanese Association of Painters and Sculptors and the Artists Syndicate. Her work has appeared in several publications, including the monograph Haibat Balaa Bawab: The Art of Collage (2012), and she also authored Beyond the Medium I and Beyond the Medium II for AUST.
An award-winning artist, Balaa received the first and only prize awarded by the Central Bank of Lebanon in 1982 for designing a new Lebanese currency, and won first prize at the Makhoul exhibitions in 1979 and 1980. She continues to inspire artists and art enthusiasts within her community.
In the words of Maie El-Hage, Art Historian:
Haibat Balaa Bawab is a Lebanese artist renowned for her pioneering work in collage art. In her pieces, namely her oil paintings additionally to her collage work, she intricately weaves narratives of Beirut, Lebanon and its people. The city where she was born and raised continues to influence her work. Her observations of quotidian Beirut scenes inspire her to translate these impressions into a distinctive artistic style.
“This exhibition focuses on a series of mixed media collages on both cardboard and canvas, which reflect a range of subjects, memories, and daily life issues inspired by our surroundings,” Haibat Balaa Bawab states.
“These said artworks were created during a particularly turbulent period, spanning more than two years. The war forced me to retreat to my atelier, a space of solace and escape from the harsh realities we were facing. The process of creation became an act of survival and resistance, channelling my fears and emotions into the work. The abstraction in these pieces is more pronounced than in my previous works.”
[Haibat Balaa Bawab reveals the evolution in her process while maintaining the subject matter that has continued to inspire her; the city of Beirut, Lebanon and its people, along with the scenic mountains and the country’s diverse beauty.]
Haibat Balaa Bawab received her BA in Fine Arts in 1975 from the Beirut University College [currently the Lebanese American University]. She holds 17 years of teaching experience at the Lebanese American University. She also took up the position of Fine Arts Coordinator at the American University of Science and Technology (AUST) from 2001 until 2022.
Maie El-Hage
Art Historian