Sylvana Mitri: Suspended Moments
Sylvana Mitri is a Beirut-based visual artist with over twenty years of experience in painting on glass, vitrail, and canvas. Her artistic practice is rooted in personal experience, observation, and the emotional texture of her environment. Through her work, she explores femininity, inner space, emotional balance, and the need to preserve moments of calm within the intensity of everyday life in Lebanon.
Her paintings often feel like suspended moments, scenes held between movement and stillness, presence and memory, reality and inner emotion. Whether she paints women in flowing dresses, a solitary figure on a boat, a musician absorbed in his instrument, or a quiet landscape at sunset, Sylvana creates images that seem to pause time. Her figures do not always reveal their faces, yet they carry a strong emotional presence, allowing viewers to project their own feelings, memories, and questions onto them.
At Kulturnest, we see Sylvana’s paintings as intimate visual spaces where the outside world is softened and slowed down. Her feminine figures become more than portraits; they appear as symbols of grace, solitude, and inner strength. Their elongated forms, flowing garments, and quiet postures evoke a delicate tension between fragility and resilience.
Her landscapes and scenes of daily life carry the same reflective quality. A boat on still water, a man holding a small cup, a musician playing in a dim interior, or a sunset reflected on a lake, each work opens a moment of pause against a world marked by noise, pressure, and uncertainty. Her colours move between deep blues, soft greys, warm reds, luminous yellows, and muted shadows, creating contrasts between intimacy and distance, softness and intensity, silence and emotion.
Following the Beirut port explosion, Sylvana’s practice became more introspective and emotionally focused, reinforcing her belief in art as a place of grounding and inner stability. Her work does not escape reality; rather, it responds to it by creating spaces of emotional refuge. Through painting, she invites viewers to slow down, enter these suspended moments, and reconnect with their own inner landscapes.
Interview
Kulturnest: Can you introduce yourself through your artistic journey rather than your biography? What key moments or shifts have shaped your practice?
Sylvana Mitri: My artistic journey began more than twenty years ago through painting on glass, or vitrail, before gradually moving toward canvas and acrylic painting. Over time, painting became more than a creative activity; it became a personal space for reflection, balance, and expression.
Kulturnest: How would you describe your artistic language — your mediums, techniques, and way of working? What draws you to these forms of expression?
Sylvana Mitri: I mainly work in acrylic painting on canvas, drawing on my background in glass painting. My work is guided by colour, texture, layering, and emotional atmosphere rather than strict concepts or narratives.
I am drawn to feminine figures, expressive surfaces, and atmospheres that create a sense of emotion and stillness. Painting allows me to communicate visually directly and intuitively.
Kulturnest: What themes, questions, or inner tensions are currently driving your work? Are there ideas you find yourself returning to?
Sylvana Mitri: Much of my work revolves around themes of femininity, emotional balance, inner calm, and the search for space within a fast-moving and often overwhelming environment.
I often return to the idea of stillness, both physical and emotional. Through my paintings, I try to create moments that feel suspended in time, offering softness and reflection. Human emotion, memory, and the atmosphere of Beirut continue to influence my work in subtle ways.
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?
Sylvana Mitri: My creative process usually begins with an emotion, an atmosphere, or an image that stays with me. I rarely start with a fixed plan. Instead, I build the painting progressively through layers, textures, colours, and adjustments that happen naturally during the process.
The most essential part for me is the moment when the painting begins to develop its own presence and balance. I enjoy allowing space for spontaneity and intuition while remaining attentive to composition and detail.
Kulturnest: How does your context — whether in Lebanon or as part of a wider artistic environment — impact your work? What challenges and opportunities does it create?
Sylvana Mitri: Living and working in Lebanon has had a strong impact on my artistic practice. The social and economic instability, as well as the emotional intensity of daily life, naturally influence the atmosphere of my work.
At the same time, Beirut is also a place of resilience, creativity, and strong human energy. These contrasts continue to inspire me. Working in this context can be challenging, but it also creates a deep emotional connection to art and to the need for expression, beauty, and balance.
Kulturnest: Looking ahead, what directions are you exploring or questioning in your practice? What would you like to evolve or preserve?
Sylvana Mitri: Looking ahead, I would like to continue exploring emotional depth and material experimentation within my paintings while preserving the intuitive and personal nature of my work.
I am interested in exploring new textures and techniques, while continuing to refine my visual language without losing the sincerity and spontaneity that are essential to my practice.
