…A Breath, Afaf Zurayk

A gentle contradiction runs through the work of Lebanese painter and poet Afaf Zurayk. Her images and words stay steady, yet they move and unfold in layered spaces.

On the white canvas, a line advances with restraint and care. As it shifts, Zurayk opens spaces that feel endless. They appear, fade, and then emerge once more. In this movement, her work briefly touches the surface of form, experience, and emotion before sinking below it and rising again for breath. Consequently, the rhythm mirrors the flow of life itself.

Although her work arrives with lightness, it deepens the moment you face it directly. It may step back, yet it always returns and offers more. This doubling—glimpse and continuation, constant and ephemeral—maps a path from light to depth and back again. Through this motion, a subtle and shifting line shapes the material of living.

Zurayk often notes that she contains darkness and allows it to contain her in return.

Afaf Zurayk is a Lebanese American artist, writer, and educator. In both her art and her writing, she seeks transparency in the color of light and guides viewers through turbulence toward acceptance. She earned a B.A. in Fine Arts (with distinction) from the American University of Beirut and later completed an M.A. in Fine Arts at Harvard University.

Over the years, she has exhibited widely, and publications such as The Washington Post, The Washington Review, Al-Hayat, and L’Orient–Le Jour have written about her work. Her art appears in the collections of the British Museum in London, the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah, the Sursock Museum in Beirut, and Darat al-Funun in Amman. She is represented by Saleh Barakat Gallery in Beirut.