Born and raised in Lebanon, Matar moved to the United States in 1984. She practiced as an architect for many years (she holds degrees from both the American University of Beirut and Cornell University) before turning to photography, which she studied at the New England School of Photography, and at the Maine Photographic Workshops in Mexico with Magnum photographer Constantine Manos. She currently works as a freelance photographerand a photography professor in Boston, at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. In collaboration with NGOs, she also teaches photography to teenage girls in refugee camps in Lebanon.

Matar seeks to give a voice and a presence to people society ignores. She focuses mainly on women’s issues, especially in the Middle East, and also photographs her own children to document the stages of their lives. Her most recent project centred on the lives of young girls, whom she photographs in the intimacy of their rooms in the Middle East and the United States.

Matar has been the recipient of more than twenty photography awards in the United States and Europe, and recently won Third Prize at the International Art Exhibition of the Lebanese Diaspora. Since 2005, she has exhibited in Lebanon and across the United States and Europe. Her work was featured in numerous publications and acquired by several museums and artistic institutions, notably the Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, Tx., the Portland Museum of Arts in Oregon and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.