Based in Beirut, Zein Daouk is a multidisciplinary architect with a passion for ceramics and an obsession for creating. Her journey into clay begins in 1999, but it is only in 2020 that it becomes her voice and she devotes herself to ceramics professionally. Her work embraces the dialogue that links disciplines and highlights the fluid narrative between functional art and sculptural design. She explores form by working with the four elements; water stretches shapes into earth, air commits them to form and fire becomes the founding act that brings them to life. A harmonious combination of biomorphic forms emerges and pushes the sculptural vocabulary to uncover a mysterious new species of functional art objects.
At the essence of her craft lies an insatiable curiosity to learn.
“It takes a mind quiet enough to appreciate silent beauty, courage not to fear spontaneity, willingness to accept things as they are: graceful in their delicate asymmetry. It hinges upon the ability to slow down, to shift the balance from doing to being, to grasp the subtly graceful, the quietly sculptural…
In the walls of clay forms, secrets unfold: nothing is finished and nothing is perfect; all is revealed as the clay peacefully flows and the muted words softly take form.”
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Solo exhibition
2021-10 THE THIRD KINGDOM | Saleh Barakat Gallery - Beirut, Lebanon.
Group exhibitions
2023-11 Creative Liaisons | LIFE-TRH project - London, UK.
2023-04 Green Roads Against Forest Fires | Arthouse Gallery - Beirut, Lebanon.
2022-10 Residence des Pins - French Embassy | Saleh Barakat Gallery - Beirut, Lebanon.
2022-05 Studio Ceramics Exhibit 1932-2022 | Moderne Gallery - Philadelphia, USA.
2021-09 CTMP DESIGN for PIK’D Gallery | Cambi Auction House - Milano, Italy.
2021-11 Roads for Life | Tanit Gallery - Beirut, Lebanon.
Art Fair exhibitions
2023-10 Design Miami | with Moderne Gallery - Paris, France.
2023-06 Salon Revelations | with PIK’D Gallery - Paris, France.
2023-04 The Philadelphia Show | with Moderne Gallery - Philadelphia, USA.
2023-02 Collect Art Fair | with PIK’D Gallery - London, UK.
2022-12 Design Miami | with Moderne Gallery - Miami, USA.
2022-11 Salon Art + Design - The Salonny | with Moderne Gallery - New York City, USA.
2022-03 Dubai Art Fair | with Saleh Barakat Gallery - Dubai, UAE.
2022-02 Collect Art Fair | with PIK’D Gallery - London, UK.
2021-11 Dubai Design Week | with The Beirut Concept Store - Dubai, UAE.
2021-10 Expo 2020 - The Lebanese Pavilion | with Saleh Barakat Gallery - Dubai, UAE.