The Lebanese-Italian artist Gilbert Halaby. (Photo courtesy of the artist)
Gilbert Halaby is only in the early years of his forties, yet when you review his journey, listen to him speak and especially hear him mention his already "three rebirths," you might think he has lived a thousand lives.
It's true that he grew up in Beirut, more specifically, "in the shade of my aunt's olive trees in Koura, in the North," he points out, before studying archaeology at the Lebanese University in Fanar. He later emigrated to Rome in 2003, where he says he was immediately struck by Stendhal syndrome, a mere precursor to a long love affair with the Eternal City.
In Rome, he opened a leather goods and jewelry store just steps away from the Pantheon. Then, in 2010, he launched his first women's ready-to-wear collection, before founding Maison Halaby in 2016, which he describes as more of a salon at the crossroads of fashion, culture, philosophy and art. Though he has always been at the intersection of worlds, it was only after a "journey" that lasted 35 years that Halaby finally saw the light, which "brought me back to what I always wanted to be: a painter."
It is precisely as part of this new transformation or rebirth that Halaby has just opened his solo show "The First Harvest" at the Hydra Museum Historical Archives in Greece.
Due to a misunderstanding
When he appears before us via Zoom, it takes just one smile to realize how much the Mediterranean spirit has influenced his sunny personality. The artist quickly mentions with emotion his first solo exhibition, "Domus Berytus," held at Beit Beirut in 2023, followed by a second in his "adopted city," Rome, titled "A Roman Comedy" at Maja Arte Contemporanea in June 2023. Then he confesses, with something akin to happiness: "It is only now, at 40, that I am realizing my dream of becoming a painter."
And yet, since the age of four, every day spent in his maternal family's olive fields in Koura, watching the sun dance through the thousand-year-old trunks, waiting for the right moment to harvest the fruit, or observing the olives being pressed to extract the liquid gold of olive oil, Halaby would instinctively capture everything he saw or felt on paper.
Throughout his life, through one adventure after another, he always made time for painting, retreating into his own world to paint for himself. "It has always been my remedy, my therapy, even though I never imagined my art would be public."
One day, on a whim, he decided to hang a few watercolors in his Maison Halaby in Rome, where art and fashion constantly intersect. A customer in the boutique asked him the price of one of the paintings, thinking they were for sale. "It all happened by accident!" Halaby was taken by surprise, a novice in the field.
On the advice of a neighboring gallery owner, he made his first sale, "the most gratifying moment of my entire life, to feel that my work as a self-taught painter was appreciated and even desired."
He continued, "It gave me wings, and immediately, I took over a space next to Maison Halaby, which I converted into a studio. Since that day in 2019, I've painted every day, without stopping, with the feeling of being reborn for the third time."
Meanwhile, since life tends to come full circle, Halaby acquired an olive field in 2022 in Vetralla, about 80 kilometers from Rome. A year later, in the fall of 2023, he went there for the first harvest, and, as he describes with a childlike gleam in his eyes: "Every memory of my childhood spent at my aunt's in Koura came rushing back, like a wave. I returned to Rome and almost automatically started painting olive trees, unable to stop."
A homage to the olive groves in southern Lebanon
It is precisely from this first harvest, this spark, this moment that suddenly brought him back to his memories, that the exhibition "The First Harvest" was born. Opened on Oct. 5 at the prestigious Hydra Museum Historical Archives on the Greek island of Hydra, the exhibition is structured in two parts. One features a series of oil paintings depicting the landscape of Hydra, whose colors change with the Mediterranean sun, season after season.
The most impressive piece is the 8-meter-long painting of the Mediterranean landscape, which evolves with the passing hours of the day, from Greece to Lebanon, passing through Palestine, Tunisia, Italy, and France. The fragmented color throughout the landscape echoes, as the artist explains, "the three suns that bathe the Mediterranean basin and have shaped my life: the sun of the Levant, the sun of Rome and the sun of Greece."
The explosion of colors, supported by a brushstroke that is both confident and tender, sometimes even naive, reflects Halaby's overflowing emotions towards all the people he loves, from his family in Lebanon to his friends who, summer after summer, await him on Hydra, the island of his heart.
The second part of "The First Harvest" is dotted with small, solitary houses nestled in 16th and 17th-century frames. Though isolated, they somehow retain the warmth of home. Once again, Halaby's precise orchestration of color, which he treats as a form of light, confronts a softer, sometimes even plush brushstroke.
"These little houses are me, and everyone who has left home, or Lebanon, but who carries a piece of home with them wherever they go," concludes Halaby.
He confesses that despite the joy of his exhibition opening, "there was also immense sorrow at the thought that the olive trees in the South are being destroyed, and this year, especially now during harvest season, no one will be there to gather the few olives that remain."
"But olive trees have survived all invaders, all wars, and this exhibition is, above all, an ode to Lebanon and a promise that we will return to harvest our olives."
"The First Harvest" by Gilbert Halaby at the Hydra Museum Historical Archives, until Nov. 15, 2024.
