Home » Artists » Adlita Stephan

Adlita Stephan

Adlita Stephen: Lebanese Multi-Disciplinary Artist

From Business to Art: A New Creative Path

Adlita Stephan (b. 1976) is a Lebanese multi-disciplinary artist who lives and works in Beirut. She holds two MAs - one in Marketing and Communication from the Ecole Supérieure des Affaires, Beirut and a second in Fine Arts from the National Institute of Fine Arts, Lebanese University. Following time spent working in business management, she began focusing fully on her art in 2011.

Reflecting on Civil War: Stephan’s Childhood Memories in Art

Stephan was born during the Lebanese civil war and conflict-related issues are a key focus in her art, which spans drawing, painting, mixed media and installation, undertaken in paper and on wood.

Recalling her girlhood war experiences, she has said: “My childhood memories are those of waking up in the middle of the night, going down the stairs from the seventh floor with chattering teeth from cold or fear, I can’t remember, and getting inside a deep black hole to hide. An engulfing black pool.”

Textual Expressions: Language as Medium and Message

Stephan discovered art back then, both as a means of escape and expression, initially drawing flowers and patterns. These works gradually evolved over time into a form of minimal art, consisting of highly personal observations of both the humdrum and the chaos of everyday life, captured on paper. Stephan’s medium is language, in terms of both the visual aspect and content. She shares her words, meticulously crafted in repetitive form, in mediums that range from ballpen and conte crayon on paper to collage and sculptures.

Themes of Fragility, Death, and Socio-Politics

Her words, often set aside in a notebook, can be inspired or dark, but are always descriptive. Intriguingly, however, they remain enigmatic to her audiences, who are invited to search for a way through the chaos and madness to understanding. The fragility of the human race, pitted against uncertainty and instability, is a key theme explored, in works that are highly emotive and deeply resonating. Conveying warmth, intimacy, uncertainty and anxiety, they often also relay a dream-like quality. “Death, our fragility as human beings, time ‘eating us away’, the war and socio-politics are all in the centre of my practice, but there is mostly me. Reproducing my ‘dream-like inner life’ and the way I see things around me,” she has noted.

Adlita Stephan’s Solo & Collective Exhibitions

Stephan’s work has been exhibited in solo shows at Janine Rubeiz Gallery, Beirut, namely: ‘Al Daken Wa ‘Oubouroh’ (2020)’ and ‘The Dopamine Series: Escape through Mind Exploration’ (2015).

She has also participated in several collective shows and art fairs, including, most recently: ‘Windings of the Labyrinth, Reconsidering the Landscape’, Rizq Art Initiative, Abu Dhabi (2024); Salon d’Automne, Sursock Museum, Beirut (2018); ‘Break All Frames’, Beit Beirut (2018); Abu Dhabi Art Fair (2018); ‘Imago Mundi’, Fondazione Benetton, Palermo, Sicily (2017); Salon d’Automne, Sursock Museum, Beirut (2016); ‘Bitasarrof’, National Library of Beirut (2016);Beijing Biennale, Lebanese Pavilion (2015); Beirut Art Fair, BIEL (2015); Clin d’oeil 2014, Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Beirut (2014); Beirut Art Fair, BIEL (2014); Visual Arts Forum, Unesco, Beirut (2012); Salon d’Automne, Sursock Museum, Beirut (2012); Salon d’Automne, Sursock Museum, Beirut (2010); and Salon d’Automne de Montréal, Canada (2001). Stephan teaches drawing at Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA).