This week I thought that I would lighten up a bit and introduce a very special Lebanese artist, Ginou Choueiri. I met Ginou five years ago at a party the first night I arrived in Lebanon. In the beginning, I never inquired about her work but it was clear that she was an artist of life by the positive creative vibes oozing out of her being.
After completing a degree in Marketing at the University of Connecticut, Ginou returned to Beirut and started a career in advertising. Seven years later after realizing that she was destined for greater creativity, Ginou traveled to Barcelona to participate in Metafora’s International Art Workshop and has been making art ever since.
Her work has been exhibited in venues such as the Contemporary Cultural Center of Barcelona, the Mario Merz Foundation in Turin, Italy, and Beirut Art Lounge. Last year, her mural "Nomad’s Land" was part of the Pop Up Lisboa 2010 Festival. Here’s a video of Ginou in action.
Ginou’s long-term project, "Potato Portraits," has created a global buzz. The series, which uses potatoes as the main canvas, saw the transformation of political figures, celebrities, friends, and family to random people Ginou would meet on the streets into potato heads.
"I chose the potato to portray human faces because of the many striking parallels. Not only is their skin porous like ours, but their skin texture and color is very similar, and like us, they come in different sizes, shapes and forms. Potatoes grow, live, and then decay, mirroring the ephemeral existence and fragility of our own human nature." – Ginou
