Juliana Seraphim

Juliana Seraphim was pioneer of the Middle Eastern art scene of the 1960s-1990s, known for her unique Surrealist style and dreamlike iconography that engaged deeply with gender struggle, the liberation of female sexuality and agency, nature and spirituality.
Having been displaced in 1948, she moved to Beirut, Lebanon at the age of 14 with her family where she attended a Catholic boarding school. At 18, she began working as a secretary at UNRWA refugee relief while attending evening art classes with Lebanese painter Jean Khalifé who organised Seraphim’s first exhibition in his studio. She then enrolled at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts and in 1959, she spent a year in Florence before moving to Madrid in 1960 to study for a year at the Royal Academy of San Fernando on a scholarship.
Seraphim produced some of her most notable works between 1960s-1990s. Considered an outsider by more politically active artists, her artworks didn’t explicitly engage with the Palestinian national cause; instead, she developed a unique, sensually visual vocabulary rooted in the perception of a "woman’s world", characterised by layers of erotic, dreamlike imagery and characters that morph into plants and flowers. She also drew inspiration from the structure of the faded frescoes of angelic beings on the ceiling of her grandfather's monastery, and former convent, in Jerusalem. She was deeply inspired by her spirituality, sexuality and her own childhood memories and upbringing.

Submitted by Janet Rady Fine Art