An iconic figure of informal abstraction in Lebanon, with both Western and Eastern influences, after graduating in Fine Arts in Beirut, Samia Osseiran Junblatt obtained a master’s degree in Florence, and later studied graphics in Tokyo, two schools that deeply influenced her work. Creating across a range of artistic modes, Samia’s mostly abstract work reflects personal and intimate experience. With a different logic each time, she continues to return to her recurring themes – the floral, the vegetative, the anthropomorphic and the celestial – as part of an evolving practice. In 1977 she founded the Artisana of Saida and South Lebanon organization to encourage Lebanese women to devote themselves to the arts.
