Mohamad Kanaan

Mohamad Kanaan (b. 1989, Beirut, Lebanon) is an artist based in Beirut who works in sculpture, installation, drawing and video. His subjects include anatomy, memory, identity and loss, and he also works from Quranic texts and medieval Arabic manuscripts. He sees art as an extension of architecture, and furniture recurs in his work.

The Mirror Series (2015) is three chairs of wood and mirrored glass, each paired with a poem. Almost American: Love Letter (2015) put a poem on two billboards along Beirut's former green line. Let's Talk About Red (2017) is an installation of soil, plants, wood and speakers. It draws on his grandmother's death in 1984 and the myth of Adonis. Eye, Sea and Dance (Objects 1 to 7) (2021) is seven interlocking sculptures in steel, concrete and marble.

He studied architecture at the American University of Beirut (BA, 2012). He took an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2016). He showed in group exhibitions at the Beirut Art Center (2016) and Mana Contemporary, Chicago (2017). Beirut Art Residency presented him alone in The August Show (2017). He held residencies at Casa Wabi, Mexico (2017), and Gapado Artist Residency, South Korea (2019). His solo exhibition The Joy of Becoming, drawn from Qazwini's thirteenth-century cosmography, opens at the Beirut Art Center in November 2026.