Johanne Issa

Johanne Issa (b. 1984) is an artist based in Beirut who works in photography, painting and ceramics. Most of her 2026 panels for Sweet Dust show bunches of flowers, usually standing in a vase or a bowl. Each is made in mixed media on panel. The paint is loose, and the surfaces are scumbled over dark grounds of brown, deep green and near black. Against them the blooms are red, orange, yellow, blue and pale green.

Sweet Dust (2026) brings together eight untitled panels, all dated 2026 and each 50 by 39 cm, in portrait format. Seven of them show flowers. The eighth sets two round orange forms low on a dark green ground. The gallery's text ties the works to memory, interiority, dream, loss and resilience. In the artist's own note, past moments and forgotten encounters come back in a new form, and even pain turns into a flower.

Issa took a bachelor's degree in cinema studies in 2005. In 2008 she received a master's in visual arts, photography and video art from ALBA, the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts. In 2026 she held the solo exhibition Sweet Dust at The Upper Gallery, Saleh Barakat Gallery, Beirut.