DE-CODING COLORS

Samia Halaby is celebrated for a long and groundbreaking career in abstract expressionist art. Until April 15, Sfeir-Semler Gallery in Beirut is staging a large exhibition of her paintings and sculptures, de-coding colors, covering the early 1980s to the 2000s. Halaby uses exuberant colour with geometric shapes to reflect her perception of nature. “Colour is a magnificent tool to manipulate when you’re an abstract painter,” Halaby says. Born in Jerusalem in 1936, Halaby’s family fled during the establishment of Israel in 1948. She became the first full-time female associate professor at the Yale School of Art and her works appear in many major museums around the world. She will also have a comprehensive retrospective at Sharjah Art Museum this autumn.