Art heals!

The childhood years spent in Lebanon during its civil war, and a long career in the news media as a senior executive for the BBC in London, meant that I saw too much of what's wrong with the world. But I knew, of course, that there is also so much to celebrate, and so I needed a constant reminder of all that is good and beautiful. Self-taught art provided that, and it became a lifeline. In the end, the decision to quit the all consuming day job in favour of a life of art was easy to make.

My art reflects the passions I've held since my childhood. An old impressionist painting of a busy Parisian avenue in my family's living room in Lebanon, still there to this day, has left in me an enduring love of cityscapes from the turn of the 19th into the 20th century. It depicts a wide boulevard, full of people going about their business or their promenades. A moment in the life of a city and its inhabitants. That evolved into a fascination with the wider rebellious impressionist and post-impressionist art from that era. I could never get enough of it: Cityscapes, landscapes and these hopeful, communal moments in people's lives. It is this that continues to drive and inspire my art today.
 
I mainly work with oil and acrylics, with occasional forays into charcoal and sketching, among others.

                                                                                                                          Samir Farah​