Born in 1980, Lebanese artist Alfred Tarazi received a degree in Graphic Design from the American University of Beirut. One of his great achievements is the “Krinzinger Projekte” residency, which took place in Vienna. His mediums vary from photography to drawing, painting, digital collage, sculpture and installation. This multifunctional creator explores the Lebanese post-war phenomena as a cathartic outlet. He is adamant about incorporating accurate elements in his work, i.e. historical, social and geographical facts. Extrapolating time as if it were a medium onto itself, a parameter of expression, the past, present and perhaps the future seem to be overlayed, stretched and fashioned according to his own optic and experience. This leads to the importance of the narrative in his pieces, a critical point of view in its own right. History is indeed selective, and Tarazi completely leans into that as an asset rather than an anomaly. He is blunt with his questions: he reckons with his audience eye to eye, without a blink. For instance, his multi-media installation entitled “The Lovers” unmasks the lives of Georgina Rizk and Ali Hassan Salameh who are two revolutionaries and symbols of irreconcilable social domains. It explores the reverb that occurs when two radically different worlds collide in an explosive way, creating a reflection of social ineptitudes in its dissonance.
