street art cypher in the heart of beirut
an exhibition of impermanence
The Wall Beirut | الحَيْط is the first street art cypher in the Middle East produced by a collective of miscreants on a mission to motivate street art in Lebanon.
The Wall provides the space, materials and an open invitation for artists to participate in an exhibition of impermanence: a space where any artist is free to express themselves without constraints, a new masterpiece unfolding over what came before, inspiring us all and raising the bar for the next challenger.
The Wall is an independent, non-profit collaboration hosted at Nation Station
Gallery
Born in Bezuidenhout Valley, Johannesburg, Adilson De Oliveira is an emerging multi-disciplinary artist, self-taught animator, and cultural practitioner with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand. Raised by a mother who worked as a high school history teacher, De Oliveira's upbringing was steeped in contested narratives and the politics of memory—elements that continue to shape the core of his artistic inquiry. He approaches his work as a method of cannibalising history, not in the literal sense, but as a means of consuming, digesting, and reconfiguring complex and often uncomfortable pasts into new visual vocabularies.
Engineer by training, farmer by accident, artist by obsession.
I’ve built things, grown things, broken things and made things — from hydroponic farms and permaculture projects to paintings, woodwork, photography and film.
These days I’m a partner at Sitt Naila, making art, building communities, and figuring out what comes next.
George Khoury aka Phat2 is the king of Lebanese Graffiti.
Influenced by the works of American pioneers, he gradually defined his own style, combining increasingly complex lettering with ever-vibrant colors.
The name Phat2 quickly appeared everywhere in Beirut: his pieces were easily identified as he became the most active graffiti artist in Lebanon within months, whose discipline experienced a particularly strong growth in the 2010s. After a decade of prolific activities in the street where he left his colorful imprint on the Lebanese capital, Phat2 focused on a new chapter in his artistic career.
His most recent project is centered on digital colorizations of Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira’s original serialization in Young Magazine’s title pages from 1983 to 1990. Curated to include some reworked classics but mostly focused on those left uncolored by Steve Oliff after consolidating the initial 120 episodes into 38 chapters for the American version.
The reason for this endeavor is deeply personal to the artist and stems from rooted childhood memories, their sudden re-emergence after the tragic Beirut port blast, and their eerie resemblance to the events of the historic manga.
Marie-Joe Ayoub aka Mjay is an independent Lebanese street artist born in Beirut and based in France. Mjay uses street art as a tool to deliver social and political messages, tinted with poetic imagery.
In this public form of art, Mjay engages people in the painting process, which for her are moments of happiness, that spark conversations, challenge norms, and inspire action.
To address this she has adopted the relational art method observed and highlighted by French art critic Nicolas Bourriaud: People become an integral part of her art and the public space her canvas, where the social context defines and inspires the work.
Renoz, a multidisciplinary urban artist from Cadmouse, Southern Lebanon, and a Lebanese University graduate with a Bachelor in Fine Arts.
Starting as a graffiti writer, he recognized the potential of this practice in reclaiming public spaces, especially after the events of October 17th, 2020 which marked the start of the Lebanese revolution.
Subsequently, he immersed himself in a sociopolitical exploration, focusing on structures emerging after the civil war and their impacts on the urban landscape. In his work, Renoz emphasizes on alternative creative problem-solving, and employs this approach to delve into nuanced topics, including corruption, water scarcity, and inflation. He also implements a dual approach of integrating elements from street environments into his studio work and vice versa, aiming with this process to facilitate communalized communication through artistic expression. Renoz's ongoing project, "The Fountain," explores water scarcity within the country. It underscores the water truck as an alternative water distribution system, presenting it as an evolved iteration of the conventional fountain. The project provides a clinical examination of the sociopolitical intricacies of Lebanon, challenging perceptions and stimulating thoughtful discourse.
A prominent Lebanese graffiti practitioner entrenched in the Beirut scene for over a decade, Unrestrained by the limitations of his home country, Spaz considers public space his arena of expression. Streets hold the vibrance of his work, recording his evolution.
His art is not merely an exploration of his personal journey but a marking of his society's progress, reflecting the changes, leaps, and the transformation they undergo.
Spaz’s new body of work is an artistic exploration of psychology. By blending surrealism and abstract art, Spaz delves into the interplay between conscious and subconscious realms, unveiling ethereal landscapes and distorted perceptions, embodying the duality of his human experience.
Kesadi, artiste peintre lyonnais né en 1994, a tracé son chemin artistique dès son adolescence à travers les graffitis et l'art urbain. Au fil de ses expériences et de ses voyages, il a progressivement développé son propre style, tirant toujours son inspiration des cultures et des paysages qu'il découvre.
Tel un miroir tendu à la société, Kesadi aborde avec ironie et humour les vices et les vertus du monde qui l'entoure. Une critique subtile qui évoque des thèmes universels aussi communs que profonds.
A travers son travail subversif, Kesadi pousse habilement le spectateur à remettre en question le statu quo en faisant appel à la créativité. Ses œuvres offrent une expérience de contemplation introspective qui interpelle et invite à sortir des sentiers battus pour explorer de nouvelles perspectives.
Quetzilla est un artiste peintre et muraliste français issu des arts visuels et des arts urbains dont la particularité est de rendre le figuratif abstrait.
Inspiré entre autres par les peintures de l’anglais Clive Head, il travaille d’après une superposition de photos en mêlant opacités et transparences pour apporter du mouvement à sa peinture.
Ce qui intéresse Quetz, c’est de déstabiliser le sens visuel du spectateur de manière à créer plusieurs lectures et apporter un regard unique sur ce qu’il voit. Ses sujets sont le reflet de son quotidien, de ses expériences et de ses voyages. Depuis ses premières cassettes et CD, le hip hop, la culture urbaine et la musique de manière plus générale, prennent une place considérable dans la vie de l’artiste.
Quetzilla a réalisé des art covers pour plusieurs rappeurs tels que Mattic, Henry Canyons et Homeboy Sandman.
In the heart of the bustling city of Abidjan, where cultures converge and urban life thrives, lives Dewone a Lebanese graffiti artist whose vibrant characters have become an integral part of the city's artistic tapestry.
For the past three years, Dewone has called Abidjan home, infusing the Ivorian streets with their unique artistic vision, painting characters that breathe life into the concrete landscape.
ghenwa noiré is a Lebanese Amsterdam-based performer and multimedia installation artist. In her performances she uses body movement, music and storytelling to tap into utterances and gestures that are influenced by the social structure of Lebanon.
As a response to the socio-political challenges in Lebanon she uses repetitive writings to investigate the branch of linguistics that is concerned with semantic satiation: The effect by which daily expressions used are washed out, as they are repeated and tokenized in the Lebanese society, where she grew up. The same goes with her performances and film based installation work where she works with loops in an attempt to revisit different forms of reality, and get past it.
She researches forms of interpreting the social and domestic tensions embedded within oral history, gossip, and nonverbal cues in her illustrations, and hand drawn animations.
In early 2023 Ghenwa opened her studio for music based jamming sessions with guests under the label ‘Telqaa Channel’. She partook in different musical jamming based initiatives, amongst them were at the Stedelijk Museum, Documenta 15, Framer Framed, and Radio AlHara.
EpS was born and raised in Ivory Coast, where graffiti's only presence was found in hip-hop magazines, EpS starting sketching with hopes to participate in the movement. Limited by the lack of scene, his self taught journey would quickly hit a ceiling.
In 2002, the civil war tore Ivory Coast apart and the 18 year old artist found himself returning to his parent's home country, Lebanon.
The walls of Beirut were almost as untouched as his previous home, but in 2006 the sound of spray cans starting echoing the streets; EpS rose to the occasion and started claiming his share of the city's walls. Painting became his way of personalising his surroundings, to become a part of them.
Today, the street-crowned name 'EpS' and his characters are present all over the region and his work has expanded to major graffiti festivals internationally including the world record for the longest graffiti scroll which took place in Dubai, the Open Summer Jam and the Mister Freeze exhibition in Toulouse France. His most notable work is his signature monkey 'Caesar'.
Caesar has quickly taken a life of his own, his shape and colours have been developing in front of the population for the past 10 years and he can be found on every other corner around Beirut with plans to visit the rest of the world and document his journey.
Exist is a Lebanese graffiti artist that uses public space as a medium to interact and influence.
With Arabic being his mother tongue, he started experimenting with Arabic graffiti letters, after a couple of years painting Latin lettered traditional graffiti. Merging distinct techniques and different approaches to produce expressive visuals that rely on true feelings, every artwork is a chance to share another real experience.
Practicing his craft at a time where ignorance is a threat to the natural purpose of expression, Exist evolves based on the determination to influence societal deviation towards distraction, and tackling uniqueness in order to feel alive.
nab is a Lebanese artist who uses hand-cut stencils to bring life to long-forgotten and intimate moments in century-old photographs. Combining the knowledge of his trade as a photographer with his passion garnered from years immersed in the Lebanese street art scene, nab has become a master of scalpel and spray paint who creates moments that surprise and elicit wonder.
nab discovered his art form entirely by chance. Fourteen years ago, the former musician was once handed a spray can by a friend.
After spraying his first tag he was hooked, and went on to master his skill to create street murals, and artworks throughout Lebanon, as well as brief stints in France, India, Mexico and The Netherlands.