Maria G. Tabet: The Colour of Consciousness, The Weight of Mortality
Maria G. Tabet’s work begins with colour, but it does not remain there. Her paintings draw the viewer in through vivid, almost seductive surfaces: saturated blues, reds, yellows, greens, and pinks that create an immediate visual intensity. Yet behind this chromatic energy lies a much darker and more existential inquiry. The faces and bodies she paints appear fragmented, exposed, watched, and psychologically charged. Eyes multiply, expressions shift between presence and dislocation, and the human figure becomes a site where anxiety, consciousness, and mortality unfold.
A Lebanese fine artist, Maria graduated from the Lebanese University of Fine Arts and Architecture with a master’s degree and an award for educational excellence. Over the past decade, she has developed a practice that moves across painting, metal, wood, video, and other media, while remaining rooted in one central research: the human conscious experience and its different stages. Her work has been shown in local exhibitions and biennales, including MACAM Biennale 2019 and Charif Tabet Gallery in Beirut, as well as internationally with Culturally Arts Collective, ITSLIQUID’s Venice Biennale 2023, Rome International Art Fair 2023, and HMVC Gallery in New York.
At Kulturnest, we read her work as a confrontation disguised as attraction. The brightness is not decorative; it is deliberate. It mirrors the distractions we create to avoid the subjects that remain closest to us: fear, death, instability, and the absurdity of existing. Born and raised in Lebanon, Maria approaches mortality not as a general philosophical idea, but as part of everyday awareness. Her paintings give form to this tension, creating a space where the viewer is invited to look longer, move beyond the first impression, and face what usually stays unspoken.
Her art does not offer comfort in the conventional sense. Instead, it creates a kind of visual shelter for difficult questions. Through distorted faces, restless compositions, and intense colour, Maria G. Tabet turns the human condition into an image: fragile, strange, beautiful, and impossible to ignore.
Interview
Kulturnest: Can you introduce yourself through your artistic journey rather than your biography? What key moments or shifts have shaped your practice?
Maria G. Tabet: Yes, well, I think the idea of existing was always odd to me, and I kind of always searched for answers or more questions about our experience. I began drawing and painting at a very young age and never really stopped. When I went into Fine Arts at university, it was the perfect visual research for me to explore all these aspects of my own conscious life. Aside from that, I was diagnosed with chronic anxiety disorder a few years back, and the idea of having this paralyzing fear of everything while still being curious about it fascinated me. The human brain is very interesting, even when it works against you. So, I feel my practice is research, but also my own coping mechanism to feel grounded and safe. And that comes out in my work; they always seem to have a reminder of mortality, which coexists with bright colors.
Kulturnest: How would you describe your artistic language, your mediums, techniques, and way of working? What draws you to these forms of expression?
Maria G. Tabet: I feel my artistic language has changed over the years. I like to experiment with existential ideas and different media, but the one I felt was cathartic to me is the chaotic figurative style I have been exploring in the past 4 years. I used to live in a tiny room. I love working on big-scale work, but it wasn’t quite possible with the space and expense of the material. So, I began drawing on A4 sheets, and I found someone who prints big scale on canvas. I started working on my piece at a smaller size and enlarged it on a rollable canvas and then reworked it. This practice allowed me to retrace, change, enhance, and go over the work multiple times until I feel like I am done with it. Now I do a mix of painting and printing in all my work. I use bright colors to attract the eye, because in our day and age, advertisement is superior to concept. But once the eye lands on a patch of color, the concept is unavoidable.
Kulturnest: What themes, questions, or inner tensions are currently driving your work? Are there ideas you find yourself returning to?
Maria G. Tabet: Basically, death. So, consciousness, this big thing we don’t understand, and death, the even bigger thing we don’t understand. People are constantly trying to forget that they are mortal, which is absurd to me – much like many things in society. But our mortality is the one force that drives us into doing anything. The idea of being time-limited is so special in a way and terrifying, whatever your belief might be. And growing up in an unstable environment, death is just another part of life; it is not a faraway concept, so I think it all comes down to curiosity with existence and wanting to provide a safe corner for us to talk about obvious topics we constantly want to ignore and embellish.
Kulturnest: Can you walk us through your creative process - from the first impulse to the final piece? What part of this process feels most essential to you?
Maria G. Tabet: It begins with a strong feeling or thought that I would like not to keep inside. I start drafting ideas and sketches for it. It’s kind of like journaling but more visual. I see how I want to use color and portray what I want to express, and this amazing shift happens where I am not focused on the emotion or fear anymore, but on the application of it, like the practical stuff. And I just go through with it, but while working, the strong emotions become much less intense. And by the time I decide to stop, I feel lighter. My work is organized chaos, which I feel reflects existence well, and the entire process feels essential to me, not a specific part, just all of it.
Kulturnest: How does your context, whether in Lebanon or as part of a diaspora, impact your work? What challenges and opportunities does it create?
Maria G. Tabet: I left Lebanon 3 years ago, and being in Kuwait for the first year alone was terrifying and a struggle. But I produced the biggest number of works that year. I feel like my research has not changed, but it does get shaped by the environment. Kuwait allowed me to focus on my work, not on whether I will be alive tomorrow or not. It provided me with the financial means to get the help I needed as well, so that was a big shift for me. Because I was alone and afraid but in a safe country with normal living conditions, it felt even more odd, and it launched me into the research even more.
Kulturnest: Looking ahead, what directions are you exploring or questioning in your practice? What would you like to evolve or preserve?
Maria G. Tabet: There’s always constant evolution in work; I don’t believe I will ever produce something and be like ‘Yeah, I’m satisfied with this’. It is a constant process, but I am working on evolving different techniques more, and I really miss Oil paint. I moved to acrylic cause it was convenient, but I feel I will go back to oil and preserve the chaos because without it, it’s not truthful. I also want to have my work be a social critique more than existential, because at the time being, I hold a lot of anger towards humans. And I would also like to go back into video art and installation, perhaps in the future.
