Ali Merhi

Ali Merhi is a Lebanese artist, born in 2000, who lives and works in Beirut. He works across painting, drawing, sculpture and installation. His assemblages for "Afteruse" (2026) join found objects such as food tins, containers and broken furniture to wooden frames and small motors, so that each piece vibrates and makes noise.

Collecting and assembling are central to his method. He draws on materials that belong to informal economies of repair, where things are fixed and returned to use. His subjects are the built environment and the objects people depend on from day to day. In "Afteruse", some objects are drawn on or arranged inside frames and read as pictures, while others become sculptural forms or instrument-like structures. MACAM has described his earlier work as engaging with Lebanese social and political questions.

Merhi completed a bachelor's degree in fine arts at the Lebanese University in 2022. He is an alumnus of the Home Workspace Program at Ashkal Alwan in Beirut. In 2023 he spent a month in residence at MACAM, the Modern and Contemporary Art Museum in Alita. There he and Salah Missi built the large installation "Bey 000", about Beirut and the sea, for the group exhibition "Duo Up!". Ashkal Alwan presents his solo exhibition "Afteruse" from October 2026 to January 2027.