Mazen Rifai

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Mazen Rifai is a Lebanese painter and architect whose work unites spatial precision with a distinctly painterly sensibility. Trained in Interior Architecture at the Lebanese University and later in Fine Arts at the Accademia di Macerata in Italy, Rifai has maintained a dual professional trajectory that intertwines architectural discipline with artistic experimentation. His design background informs a compositional clarity in which form and structure are distilled to their most essential elements. Working primarily on an intimate scale, he employs dense impasto and horizontal strata of pigment to construct abstracted visions of his native Baalbek and the Bekaa Valley. These compositions, free of illusionistic depth, sustain a modernist dialogue within the broader tradition of Lebanese landscape painting while remaining grounded in a recognisable sense of place. His restrained tonal range and recurring, almost spectral horizon line evoke the luminosity of the landscape without resorting to direct representation, situating his practice between material structure and contemplative atmosphere. Since the 1970s Rifai has regularly exhibited at the Sursock Museum’s Salon d’Automne and presented numerous solo exhibitions in Beirut, Paris and Amman. Notable shows include those at Agial Art Gallery (2007, 2021), Galerie Rochane (2016) and Galerie 34 Bonaparte in Paris (2016), all of which reflect his sustained exploration of landscape as an architectural construct. Beyond his studio work, Rifai has served as Art Director at Engineers Consulting and Contracting since 1990 and played a key role in major urban renewal projects, notably the Beirut Central District Reconstruction Plan. A member of the Baalbeck International Festival Committee, he has also published two photographic volumes - Baalbeck Black and White (2007) and Baalbeck 1981–2011 (2011) - which extend his investigation of place, memory and built form.