The Bare Minimum

Art District, the gallery and studio on rue Gouraud in Gemmayzeh, Beirut, presents The Bare Minimum, the first solo exhibition by Christel Daccache, from 10 September to 2 October 2026. The exhibition opened with a reception on Thursday 10 September.

According to the gallery, Daccache's work "explores love and its costs, waiting, surrender, desire, and the parts of ourselves we quietly give away". Through figures "caught in states of tension and negotiation", the paintings examine relationships with the body, power, intimacy and myth.

Working in mixed media, Daccache builds "layers of paint, collage, erasure, and exposed surfaces", so that each work becomes "a record of what is revealed, concealed, and undone". Art-historical references are reimagined as living archetypes, reflecting stories of devotion, power, loss and desire. The image on the exhibition poster shows three female figures side by side, painted with exposed anatomy and ornamental patterning against a dark ground.

In The Bare Minimum, the gallery writes, Daccache "focuses on what remains when almost everything else falls away: a gesture, a presence, a fragile connection, the smallest thing that can keep us from leaving". The exhibition is presented as "the result of a long, often invisible process", what "years of looking, feeling, and making have ultimately left behind".

As a first solo presentation, the show introduces a painter whose layered surfaces and use of collage turn intimate subjects into a study of what is kept and what is given away. No further biographical details for the artist have been published by the gallery.