My Trip to Lebanon: Week One - Ariana Bauer

« Back to blog

My Trip to Lebanon: Week One

First, Merry Christmas (though a little late) to everyone!

I visited Byblos, the oldest continually inhabited city on the planet, this week. This being my second time visiting, I am still amazed at the structure and the souks. Shopping in store fronts that have shopped in for thousands of years is so much fun.

Today, I visited Southern Lebanon, where my family has over 1200 acres and saw the remains of the home my grandmother and great grandmother was born in. The destruction is overwhelming. The cities I was in today were flattened to the ground by the Israeli bombing of 2006. There is so little words to describe how it felt to be standing on the border of Lebanon and Israel. The Lebanese are phenomenal people, after years and years and being bombed into the ground, they are still rebuilding the houses of their families. They will never quite. I saw million dollar villas next to rubble of houses long destroyed.

The Lebanese are perhaps the most resilient people on the planet. I watched my grandmother look over the border and stare onto land stolen from her during war, land she played upon as a child, now guarded by electric fences and snipers and tanks and God only knows what else. She stood proud, her and her brother, and with conviction and hope, told us the stories of their happy childhoods and troubled war stories. It makes me proud to call myself Lebanese today. I truly felt a connection with my heritage today in a way not many people experience. Today we stood four generations on the land of my family, in the shadow of Mount Herman and took our family portrait. It was a moment I will tell my grandchildren about.

Please feel free to ask any questions on Lebanon you might have for me, it would be my pleasure to help people learn more about this amazing nation.
Tomorrow off to visit family in Juneieh. I love Juneieh, it's on the Christian side of the city and has so much shopping. Now to try to get a little sleep and download 16GB of data from CF cards!

Posted December 26, 2009

Ariana Bauer

Artist Statement

Living somewhere between our world and an era long past, my works take you to another time. Using a technique that combines meticulously executed photographs with digital painting, I create works of art that I describe as virtual mixed media.

Driven by experimentation and the chaos of our world, I choose subjects by impulse and attraction with a focus on beauty. From the natural world to portraits, desolate landscapes, and bustling cities, there is little in this world that does not grab my attention. My work is feminine, abstract, soft, often pink and purple, and constantly contradictory.
Biography

For over 10 years, the Lebanese American artist Ariana Bauer has been creating images that live somewhere between our world and another time. Capturing the emotion and essence of a seemingly past life, she takes us on a journey into her soul. Her meticulously executed photography is combined the high tech world of digital painting to create works of art that is hard to describe in words.

Driven by sheer determination, this self taught artist is currently making her way into the world of fine art. Her permanent gallery collection, located at Mist Spa, soothes visitors as they receive their treatments. Her focus on beauty in all aspects of our world allows her to exhibit her work in many venues with ease. In 2009, the viewers of Naughti Gra were in awe of her romantic and old world sensibilities. She also likes to work for the greater good, exhibiting her work at fund raisers such as Save the Girls, a Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation fund raiser. Ariana also exhibits her work internationally over the web.

Growing up as a Lebanese-American, Ariana embraced her heritage as a Lebanese citizen. Having travelled with her family as a child and teenager around the globe, Beirut has always been special close to her heart. Snapping away at ancient ruins and bustling cities alike, her passion for photography was born. In college, her career path was that of a software engineer. She used her knowledge of technology as a base for jumping into the world of arts. She is a self taught in many different mediums of art, but found her greatest passion was for photography. She also loves fiber arts and has been sewing since childhood.

Ariana is inspired by the contradictions between our modern day chaotic world and simpler eras long past. She has studied the early days of photography at length and the inspiration is consistent in her work. Her subject matter tends to vary vastly, from the natural world to portraits to landscapes to bustling cities, but always with a focus on natural beauty. Her work is always feminine, often abstract and soft. Tones of pink and purple are recurring themes. Her work can range from sharply photographic to painterly in nature and is always unexpected and surprising.

Viewed

times