Rosevart Sisserian

Rosine Vartouhie Sisserian, better known as Rosevart Sisserian, is a Syrian artist who was born in Aleppo in 1924 and died in 2016. Her talent and love for painting were evident at an early age and she retained that passion throughout her life, continuing to create art until her death.

Sisserian left Syria for Lebanon in 1960, where she attended classes run by the American painter and art educator Gordon Olsen, who taught and chaired the Department of Fine and Performing Arts at the American University of Beirut from 1969 to 1975.

Already a mother to five children and having focused on her family until this time, she enrolled at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) in 1974, just before the civil war, graduating with Distinction in 1979. 

Nature in all its glory was a key source of inspiration for Sisserian, celebrated in both oil and water colour, and figurative and abstract works. Titles that include ‘Le Chant de la Nature’, ‘Underwater Waltz’ and ‘Mon Jardin d’ Hiver’ reflect her love for the subjects she chose to bring to life in her compositions.

Sisserian’s oils on canvas are immediately recognisable through her use of motifs and patterned shapes that undulate and swirl in dynamic curves and arabesques in nature’s palette of blues, greens and earthy deep orange.

According to Sisserian, “The simpler the shape, the more refined the colour, the stronger the feeling.”

In contrast, her watercolours have a more delicate and fragile feel to them, with the chosen subjects, which include trees shrouded in blossom and flowers in bloom, seemingly ideally suited to the choice of medium. 

Sisserian began teaching at ALBA in 1980 and continued to do so for three decades, sharing her knowledge and instilling the same level of enthusiasm she had for colour and composition in her students.

She also founded the Toros Roslin Art Academy and played a key part in the development of the Hamazkayin ‘Lucy Tutunjian’ Art Gallery, where her work is displayed.

Sisserian’s work has been exhibited in Lebanon and abroad, notably in France, Armenia and the US, in solo and collective shows.

Recent shows include a posthumous show titled ‘Rosevart: Mon Liban, un bout de Paradis’ at Exode, Ashrafieh (2019) and a special event honouring both Sisserian and her work at the Hamazkayin ‘Lucy Tutunjian’ Art Gallery in 2016 which had been planned before her death in the same year. Her work was also shown at the French Cultural Centre (2004), among other institutions.

Sisserian was known for her charitable work on the art scene and was a holder of the Hamazkayin Medal.