R1 Ouranos

In her series Ailleurs, Nicole Yazbeck Moussalli creates a constellation of circular and oval works inspired by celestial bodies, mythology, air, water, and the invisible movements that shape life. The collection draws on ancient Greek and Roman names for planets and satellites, many of which derive from gods and goddesses: Ouranos, Luna, Helios, Hermes, Poseidon, Cronos, Aphrodite, Ares, Gaia, Demeter, Zeus, Artemis, Hades, and Uranus.

Nicole’s artistic journey began with a deep sensitivity to nature. Her earliest sketches were inspired by flowers and fruits, which she transformed through colour, imagination, and a sense of fantasy. More recently, her work has turned toward two essential elements of life: air and water. Using fluid acrylic techniques, she translates their random, organic movements into captivating compositions in which the boundary between abstraction and illusion is very thin.

The works in Ailleurs are marked by movement, colour, flow, and transformation. Their circular forms evoke planets, inner landscapes, floating worlds, and imagined territories. Through the unpredictable behaviour of fluid acrylic, Nicole allows the material to become part of the creative process, producing surfaces that seem at once cosmic, aquatic, mineral, and atmospheric.

The collection includes works such as Ouranos, Luna, Helios, Hermes, Poseidon, Cronos, Aphrodite, Ares, Gaia, Demeter, Zeus, Artemis, Hades, and Uranus, mostly created in 2019 using acrylic on canvas or cardboard, with some works incorporating liquid crystal.

Curator’s Note

Dr. Pamela Chrabieh

Co-founder and CEO of Kulturnest

For Havens, we selected six works from Nicole Yazbeck Moussalli’s Ailleurs series: Ouranos, Poseidon, Helios, Gaia, Demeter 2, and Hermes. Together, they form a poetic constellation of elemental, mythological, and inner shelters, opening a dialogue with the exhibition’s central question: what shelters us, even briefly, when everything around us is unstable?

Nicole’s works are rooted in movement, colour, and transformation. Created through fluid acrylic techniques, they translate the unpredictable behaviour of air and water into abstract compositions where the line between illusion and abstraction remains deliberately fragile. This fragility is essential to their relation to Havens: they do not represent refuge as something fixed or closed, but as something fluid, temporary, and constantly reshaped by memory, emotion, and imagination.

Each selected work carries a symbolic resonance. Ouranos, named after the god of the starry sky, evokes the vastness above us: the cosmic shelter, the imagined horizon, the protective distance we sometimes need to breathe. It suggests a haven not as a room or a wall, but as an opening toward immensity.

Poseidon, linked to the god of seas and oceans, brings the symbolism of water: depth, movement, danger, cleansing, and renewal. In the context of Havens, water becomes both instability and protection. It reminds us that refuge can also be found in flow, in the capacity to adapt, and in the emotional currents that carry us through crisis.

Helios, associated with the sun, introduces light as a form of shelter. Light does not erase darkness, but it allows us to orient ourselves within it. Nicole’s Helios resonates with the exhibition’s understanding of havens as fragile gestures of hope, warmth, and visibility in times marked by exhaustion and uncertainty.

Gaia, the Earth, anchors the selection. It symbolises ground, origin, body, fertility, and belonging. Within Havens, Gaia speaks of the need to remain connected to what sustains us: land, roots, memory, and the living world. It reminds us that shelter is not only above or elsewhere; it is also beneath us, in the ground that holds our histories.

Demeter 2, connected to the goddess of agriculture, extends this earthly symbolism toward nourishment, care, cycles, and regeneration. It evokes the haven of cultivation: what we plant, protect, and patiently allow to grow, even in damaged landscapes. In a time of rupture, Demeter 2 becomes an image of continuity and quiet resistance.

Hermes, the messenger of the gods, brings the dimension of passage, communication, and connection. In Havens, this symbolism is particularly meaningful. A haven may be a message, a voice, a shared word, a bridge between isolated selves. Hermes reminds us that shelter can also be relational: the fragile thread that keeps us connected when separation, fear, or displacement threaten to fragment us.

Nicole’s biography deepens this reading. Her first artistic explorations emerged during the Lebanese war, when painting became a form of therapy and refuge from violence. This history gives Ailleurs a powerful resonance within Havens. The “elsewhere” she creates is not an escape from reality, but an inner territory where life can continue to move, breathe, and transform.

Through Ouranos, Poseidon, Helios, Gaia, Demeter 2, and Hermes, Nicole offers six possible havens: sky, water, light, earth, nourishment, and connection. Together, they invite us to imagine refuge not as withdrawal from the world, but as a way of remaining alive within it, through beauty, movement, memory, and the enduring human need to create meaning under pressure.