Ali Mourabet

Ali Mourabet (b. 1951, Damascus, Syria) is an artist based in Beirut who works in painting, mostly in oil and acrylic on canvas. He has lived in Lebanon for most of his life. His subjects are city streets, rural landscapes, beaches and everyday objects, in Beirut and on his travels. Houses with multicoloured façades, balconies, shutters and pot plants recur, as do the buildings of the American University of Beirut. Some scenes look down on sunbathers under umbrellas or office workers crossing Beirut traffic. He paints in saturated colour with sharp, clean lines and simple geometric shapes. His later canvases set geometric forms beside descriptive detail, between abstraction and figuration.

Mourabet has worked as an architect since 1976 and as a professional painter since 1977. From 1978 to 1980 he was a caricaturist for a daily paper and two weekly magazines in Abu Dhabi. His drawing of College Hall at the American University of Beirut was sold to help fund the hall's reconstruction in 1992. Ain El Mrayseh (2022) is an oil on canvas, 145 by 80 cm, and Gemayzeh stairs (2023) a square oil, 100 by 100 cm. AUB College hall (2025) is a smaller oil on canvas, 50 by 50 cm.

Solo exhibitions include Spring Gallery, Saida (1990), the AUB Alumni Club, Beirut (1991 and 1992), Galerie Shammas, Paris (1993), and Portico Gallery, Kent (2024). Group shows include Brick Lane Gallery, London (2019), Journeys Through Colour, The Whitehouse Gallery, Kirkcudbright (2022), and R Young Gallery, Wokingham (2023). In 2024 he showed in Vibrant Colour and Summer Haze at No Naked Walls, Guildford. His solo show Geometry of Belonging will run at Art Scene Gallery, Beirut, from 5 to 17 November 2026.