Abdallah Kassem

Abdallah Kassem (b. 1985, Ivory Coast) is a Lebanese visual artist based in Beirut, where he also works as a dentist. He began his art practice in 2017, when he enrolled in fine arts at the Lebanese University. There he worked with the Lebanese-American artist Ara Azad as his mentor.

During the Covid-19 pandemic he began using a thermal camera. It led him to the traces of heat left between materials and the human body. From there he built installations of intimate spaces that visitors can enter. In 2023 he started working with artists from Lebanon, Palestine and Germany on workshops and live virtual events.

His solo exhibition The Red Sea opened at Galerie Tanit, Beirut, on 29 November 2023 and ran to 29 December. It grew from a trip to the Red Sea coast in April 2023. In 2026 he showed Autoportrait (2022) in Resurgence in Motion Part II at Labyrinthe, Beirut. The large canvas sets a ritual inside a maze of shapes, around an image from the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion.