Venom and Loss عواء

Co-founder and Managing Director/CEO of Kulturnest. Lebanese-Canadian visual artist, researcher, activist, writer, program manager, and consultant with extensive 25+ years of multidisciplinary and international experience in university teaching, academic research, visual arts and art direction/curation, creative communications & content creation, as well as program management, training, and conference/workshop/exhibition organization.

Dr. Chrabieh holds a Higher Diploma in Fine Arts and Restoration of Icons (1999, Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts [ALBA], University of Balamand, Lebanon). She pursued her higher studies at the University of Montreal in Quebec - Canada: Minor in Religious Sciences (1999), MA in Theology, Religions, and Cultures (2001), Ph.D. in Theology-Sciences of Religions (2005), and held two Postdoctoral Fellowship positions financed by the Governments of Quebec and Canada from 2005 to 2008.

She is the author of numerous books, articles, and various publications. As an activist, she has been a member of local/international NGOs and a member of executive committees and advisory/editorial boards of several organizations since 1995. She won several prizes in Canada, Lebanon, and the UAE.

As a visual artist, she exhibited her work in Canada, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, Spain, Greece, Poland, Hong Kong, China, Korea, the UK, the USA, and the metaverse.

Chrabieh's artistic journey, heavily influenced by her upbringing during Lebanon's wartime, has led her to seek connections between cultures, traditions, and digital expressions. Her childhood experiences, where she used art and music to cope with the horrors of war, laid the foundation for her lifelong commitment to healing collective memory wounds and promoting unity through arts and culture.

Her journey began with traditional iconography and icon restoration, followed by explorations in Kufic calligraphy and the evolution of her visual style, themes, and medium. Dr. Chrabieh's art has transitioned from traditional techniques to mixed media and digital arts. She draws inspiration from Byzantine and Syriac iconography, incorporating stylized forms and specific lighting to convey human divinization, while also addressing contemporary issues such as women's rights, intercultural dialogue, and peacebuilding.

Her art is a multifaceted expression of her identity, embracing her local and global experiences in Canada, Europe, and Southwestern Asia. Each artwork strives to bring invisible perspectives to light, convey fragments of collective memory, and bridge cultural narratives, ultimately sublimating reality without elevating it to an ontological 'hyper-real' state but presenting it as beautifully different.