Zena Assi lives and works in Beirut, where she was born. A graduate of the advertising department of the Académie Libanaise des Beaux Arts, Assi is a self-taught painter working with a variety of media: she uses acrylic, oil, ink or spray cans, collages of found images, and even photocopies and reproductions of her own paintings that she assembles on canvas.

Her works are inspired by the relations and conflicts between the individual and his or her environment, with a focus on the daily lives of Beirut’s citizens. Chiselled figures of melancholic young man and women evolve within cluttered cityscapes, where buildings are stacked on top of one another amidst the urban clutter, itself overlaid with electrical wires and antennas.

Assi started exhibiting in 2005, taking part in collective exhibitions in Lebanon and the U.A.E. Since 2008, she has had solo shows in Beirut, Bahrain and Dubai. Her works have been sold at auction by Sotheby’s in London in 2010, Christie’s in Dubai. Assi was also featured at the Abu Dhabi Art Fair in 2008 and 2010, and at the Biennale of Cairo in 2011. In 2009, she was awarded the Mention Spéciale du Jury of Sursock Museum’s Salon d’Automne and BMW Mini Cooper’s 50th Anniversary Best Design for the Middle East prize.