At 88, Jerusalemite Samia Halaby continues to work. She draws. She paints. She sculpts. Her hands seem to produce an endless stream of vibrant color, her mind outpouring with the emotion and experience that dance across her blank canvas. The art she produces varies: an amalgamation of colorful shapes that fall into abstraction; sharp geometric lines cutting at different angles; smooth and blurred illustrations mimicking hazy memories; chaotic and loud patterns that fall into order within the landscape they represent. Throughout the decades, this seasoned artist has experimented and mastered myriad art forms, creating thousands of pieces expressing a wide range of human feelings and ideas or depicting places and historical events.
In this photo, we are in Halaby’s studio, located in Tribeca, Manhattan, New York. The walls are white-washed and adorned with posters and other pieces of art. Behind her are shelves carrying her books and tapes. Her canvases and works in progress are stacked on the left and another table holds her current project. At the foreground is one of Halaby’s abstract paintings.
Halaby sits at the center of all this.
Halaby moved to the United States in the 1950s, but has resided in this present studio since the 1970s. In some other life—Halaby was its third occupant—it served as a welding shop, before the artist converted the garage-like room into her creative space. The natural light that enters the studio is only rivaled by the radiance of her paintings.
Halaby continues to work, creating part art and part history.