Alaa Itani

Alaa Itani (b. 1996) is a Lebanese visual artist, researcher and archivist based in Beirut. He works in painting, drawing and printmaking. In his reverse glass paintings he applies ink to glass and then wipes parts of it away. Light passes through the cleared areas of sky and cloud and casts doubled shadows of the image.

His work sits between representation and abstraction, often as imagined landscapes and atmospheres. He began the series A Momentum for the Horizon in October 2023. Its horizons and clouds are set in dialogue with the Bekaa landscapes that the Lebanese modernist Rafic Charaf painted from memory in Beirut. Earlier paintings include The Turkish Bath (2020) and Indifferent (2021), an acrylic work of 204.5 x 182.5 cm.

Itani took a BA in Communication Arts at the American University of Science and Technology, Beirut (2019). He then took a BFA in Plastic Arts at the Lebanese University (2022). He won the Boghossian Foundation Prize for visual arts in 2022. Group shows include Galerie Janine Rubeiz (2020 and 2021) and Galerie Tanit (2021) in Beirut, and the Fondation Taylor, Paris (2022). His residencies include the Cité internationale des arts, Paris, and Temporary Art Platform with Hospitalfield, Arbroath.