Painter Issa Halloum's vision of the Bekaa
Lebanese artist Issa Halloum celebrates Lebanon’s landscapes through his paintings
You don’t need to have a conversation with artist Issa Halloum to discover his love of the rural regions of Lebanon’s Bekaa. His deep connection to the land and people of his hometown Al Ain, a village 33km north of Baalbeck, and the surrounding area is immediately obvious in his paintings. His pieces, characterized by thick linear brushstrokes and blocks of color in a Mediterranean palette, show daily life in Lebanon’s rural parts, from fertile landscapes of agricultural fields in shades of green and their workers, to snow-filled scenes in the Bekaa or daytime gatherings in local cafes. His artistic preoccupation seems to be with representing the beauty of Lebanon’s landscapes. Halloum, an unassuming man, modest and softly spoken, started drawing and painting at an early age, encouraged by his elder brother. “When all the other kids were outside playing football I was not interested,” he says. “I wanted to stay home and paint.” Later he studied art at the Fine Arts Institute at the Lebanese University where he graduated in 1995 before being accepted at the renowned arts establishment Brera Academy in Milan. Here Halloum found an incubating community where he connected with other artists. Though the majority of Lebanese artists choose to base themselves in Beirut, to be in the midst of the country’s artistic center, Halloum prefers his home region of Al Ain. “I belong to this land. I have my own workshop, my own life here,” he says. “I paint wherever I go, but whenever I’m in the Bekaa I have a stronger feeling for the landscape.”
I paint wherever
I go, but whenever I’m in the Bekaa I have a stronger feeling for the landscape
Directly inspired by the landscapes surrounding him, Halloum takes his painting materials into nature and settles when he finds a nice composition, first sketching in charcoal and then beginning the layers of paint. He often works on numerous paintings around a theme for a planned collection simultaneously. “I work all the time, but [it might mean] sitting in my studio, listening to music, reading, and looking at my work. I’ll take one painting with me to the kitchen and living room, so I can live with it and see what’s missing. It moves with me.” Drawn to natural scenes full of color and life, fall is Halloum’s favorite season to paint outdoors; “I love the palette of colors,” he says. His paintings show a variety of landscapes, from mountains to valleys, but it’s the agricultural fields that really move him, and repeatedly appear throughout his work. “I love the colors and separations. It helps for the composition.” He also has an attachment to the workers of the land. “They’re good people. [Those] working on the soil are the real people,” he says. “We are the people who make problems. They plant the wheat, we eat it but then we sit on the computer. They’re providing us with life.” Though Halloum wishes art could be decentralized from the capital city, he doesn’t expect the Bekaa to develop its own arts scene. “I’ve tried before but there’s no acceptance. People are not interested.” When friends ask how he can leave his studio unlocked with his paintings in his home village, he laughs. “I would love it if someone stole one, it would mean someone in the area has an interest in art.” Halloum is passing his experience onto the next generation, teaching at the Islamic University of Lebanon, in Khaldeh. He travels to Beirut regularly for solo and collective exhibitions, many of which have taken place at Alwane Gallery. But the rich lands of the Bekaa soon draw him back again.