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About me

Lana Khayat is a contemporary artist whose work exists at the intersection of nature, heritage, and abstraction. Moving between the vibrant landscapes of Spain and the vast stillness of the Arabian desert, she weaves together contrasting worlds, forging a visual language that is both deeply personal and universally resonant.

Born into a family with a profound artistic legacy, Lana’s connection to art runs generations deep. Her great-grandfather, Mohamad Suleiman Khayat, was a master craftsman who restored Syrian Ajami rooms, with his intricate work now housed in institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art in Hawaii. This ancestral artistry shaped her creative foundation, grounding her in the richness of tradition while encouraging her to reimagine its possibilities.

Lana’s academic journey led her to the American University of Beirut, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Design, followed by a Master’s in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her time at the Guggenheim Museum further expanded her artistic perspective and shaped her understanding of art’s transformative potential.

Central to Lana’s work is the lily, a motif that symbolizes resilience, transformation, and empowerment. Intertwined with the ancient scripts of Tifinagh and Phoenician civilizations, her compositions transcend mere aesthetics, reimagining historical symbols into contemporary abstractions. Through the interplay of organic forms and geometric structures, she creates a visual language that is as rooted in the past as it is relevant to the present.

Lana’s work has been showcased internationally, with exhibitions in New York, London, and the Middle East. Her pieces are part of esteemed private collections, and her collaborations with institutions such as the Guggenheim Museum highlight her growing recognition in the global art world.

Through her practice, Lana Khayat crafts spaces of remembrance and reinvention that transcend aesthetics, where the past is not simply preserved but reborn. Her work is an homage to the resilience of women, a testament to the enduring power of identity, and an invitation to experience art as both a language and a legacy.

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Selected exhibitions

Painting
Lana khayat
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Artist Statement

My art is a dialogue between worlds—a bridge where nature, heritage, and abstraction converge to honor the strength and resilience of women. It is a space where opposites meet, where fluidity and structure coexist, and where history finds its voice in the present. Rooted in the harmony of contrasts, my work reflects my life between the vibrant landscapes of Spain and the vast serenity of the Arabian desert.

The lily, an enduring motif in my practice, symbolizes transformation and empowerment. It represents the strength of women who, like the flower, navigate challenges with grace and thrive against the odds. By weaving the organic beauty of nature with the structured precision of geometry, I explore the dualities of delicacy and power, movement and permanence; revealing the balance women continuously navigate.

Ancient scripts, particularly Tifinagh and Phoenician, form another layer of my visual language. These symbols bear history and identity, and inspire me to create contemporary abstractions that honor the past while speaking to the present. In my work, these scripts are reimagined into abstract compositions—fluid, evolving, refusing to be confined. They are a testament to the enduring nature of language, much like the resilience of women, who shape and reshape narratives across generations.

Through my art, I seek to create a visual language that transcends time. A narrative that preserves memory, celebrates strength, and offers a space where the feminine voice is seen, heard, and felt.