Born in Lebanon in 1964, Joseph Harb holds a degree in fine arts at the Lebanese University.

In 1996, he received a scholarship from the Academie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts and the French Cultural Center in Beirut, and he attended the same year a sculpture workshop in Cergy-France.

Since 1987, he participated in some personnel and collective exhibitions in Lebanon and he was a regular exhibitor at the Salon d'Automne, Musée Sursock Beirut of which he became a member in 1996.

In 1995, he participated at the Biennale of Sharjah and joined Galerie Janine Rubeiz with whom he participated at many international art fairs: "Art Paris 99", "Europ'Art 97 and 99" at Genève; "Lebanon: The Artist's View II" at London in 2013, "Dubaï Art 2011" et "Abu-Dhabi Art 2013".

In 2006, his work was exposed at the "Brushes for Feathers" exhibition organized by Galerie Janine Rubeiz for the benefit of the Lebanese Foundation of the National Library.

He taught drawing at USEK, Balamand University, and the Academie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts then he moved to the United States where he lived and worked from 2000 to 2009.

In April 2010, he participated in the exhibition" convergence-new Art from Lebanon", at Katzen Art Center at the American University at Washington DC.

Harb's work is permanently exhibited at the Janine Rubeiz Gallery in Beirut.

The art touch of the artist Harb

Under Construction

My works sum up my life

I work because I am disorganized. Yet, I seek order in a certain sense. And what I am after is still vague to me. Maybe for this reason I feel free to imagine all sorts of worlds, without limiting my aimless fantasies.

Maybe my laziness drives me to a surrealistic world that treasures inexhaustible sources of inspiration in which I indulge myself. Chaos acts as a magnet to me; its curious coincidences where the hands of luck and whims of fate reshuffle everything put me in a trance, without conscious control of myself, before the mysterious new configurations of things.

I paint in order not to be hurt. But at the same time, I feel self-contradiction deep inside because I hate my works: they are more correct and transparent than the emotions that I admire but oppress. I don't look in the mirror because I prefer looking at my work. Perhaps they are my real self.

Technically speaking, I work with a drill because it is quicker than my thoughts. It accumulates layers of painting in one minute. It is my electric hand.

As for my hands, they are stronger than my thoughts and act like guides to them. They paint as if to rectify what is not good in my soul or the world. I like to correct rules, and at times to overthrow them altogether.

I pick up my thrown drawings and paintings and hide them in a box. I collect the patterns and put them aside to preserve them as very precious fragments of myself.

Maybe one day I'll collect them and reshuffle them differently and continually retrieve myself. Isn't everything, including myself, under construction?

Joseph Harb