Hala Ezzeddine (born in Arsal, 1989) is an up-and-coming contemporary Lebanese artist based in Arsal in the Bekaa valley. She received her BFA and MA from the Fine Art Institute of the Lebanese University and went on to teach art classes to Lebanese and Syrian students in her hometown until 2016. During that time, she also painted portraits of her students which were exhibited in Agial Art Gallery in 2020, along with depictions of Beirut, under the name “In Search Of Light”. Ezzeddine’s work is said to be ethnographic since she tends to shed light on a certain community, emphasizing the socio-political context surrounding it. 

Hala Ezzeddine has had two solo exhibitions at Agial Art Gallery in Beirut, and has participated in multiple collective exhibitions including the 33rd Salon d’Automne of Sursock Museum, Beirut (where she won the Emerging Artist prize) and the CAB International Art Symposium 4 in Amman Jordan. She has also been on a 2-month residency at Atelier AMI Galerie Analix Forever, Switzerland.

This intriguing work by Ezzeddine is a perfect depiction of Beirut: the city burns with not one cloud of smoke in sight. This piece is a metaphor for a country where catastrophe is so constant that it has become the norm. On the lower right there is a water cistern typically seen on the roofs of Lebanese buildings. The presence of benign amounts of water in the piece adds to the general irony of the situation. This work by Ezzeddine is a poignant critique on the paralyzed state of her home country.