An Article by D.M. (958 words, 5 min. read)
At Galerie Cheriff Tabet and Kalim Bechara Art Gallery, two Lebanese sculptors explore the relationship between material, movement and space. Through bronze, marble, stone and cedar wood, Sabine Karam and Nabil Helou offer two deeply personal interpretations of sculpture, each shaped by a different sensitivity.
When Matter Becomes Emotion
There is something particularly moving about sculpture. Perhaps it is the physical relationship we develop with an object that occupies the same space as our bodies. We approach it, walk around it, observe its curves, imagine touching its surface and wonder how something so solid can suggest such extraordinary movement. Sculpture engages our entire body in the act of looking.
Two exhibitions currently taking place in Beirut offer a beautiful opportunity to experience this relationship through the creations of Sabine Karam at Galerie Cheriff Tabet and Nabil Helou at Kalim Bechara Art Gallery. Both artists explore the possibilities of volume and emptiness, yet their approaches reveal distinct artistic personalities. One explores the human condition through the sensuality of bronze, while the other searches for movement and infinity within the natural character of stone and wood.
Sabine Karam: The Weight of Human Emotions
Sabine Karam’s sculptures immediately attract attention through their feminine silhouettes, elongated bodies and carefully shaped openings. There is a tenderness in her treatment of bronze, a material traditionally associated with strength and permanence. Her figures appear protective, contemplative and occasionally vulnerable. Their simplified anatomy allows emotions to emerge through posture, curvature and the relationship between their exterior surfaces and interior spaces.
One particularly striking sculpture, Le Silence Intérieur, depicts a standing figure whose arms seem to embrace the upper body. Its hollow face and vertical opening invite us to consider the emotions we keep within ourselves. Another, in a beautiful deep blue, resembles a seated woman whose body opens along its central axis. Its flowing contours recall the softness of fabric, while the dark interior suggests a private world accessible through the imagination.
Karam describes the relationship between the weight of bronze and the lightness of emptiness as central to her artistic research. The material represents the burdens of human existence, including fears, social constraints and emotional wounds. The openings become spaces through which freedom and transformation can be imagined. Her recurring woman-bird figure draws inspiration from the philosophical relationship between gravity and grace explored by Simone Weil.
From Clay to Bronze
Karam’s artistic journey adds another dimension to these sculptures. Born into a Lebanese-American background, she studied biology and fashion design before pursuing painting and eventually discovering sculpture at the Art Students League in New York. She later developed her ceramic practice at the Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy.
Her transition from ceramics to bronze emerged during Lebanon’s electricity crisis, when the practical difficulties of firing clay encouraged her to explore a more durable material. This change gradually became an artistic discovery. Bronze allowed her to preserve the delicacy of her modeled forms while giving them greater physical permanence.
Her earlier recognition includes two awards from MACAM, in 2014 and 2017, with the winning sculptures entering the museum’s permanent collection.
Nabil Helou: The Poetry of Movement
At Kalim Bechara Art Gallery, Nabil Helou takes us into another sculptural universe. His marble, stone and Lebanese cedar wood creations twist, rise, intersect and extend through space with remarkable fluidity.
The first impression is one of movement. A reddish wooden sculpture rises through a succession of openings and curved planes, its polished surface revealing the warmth of the grain. A pale marble form stretches horizontally, curling around itself with the elegance of a ribbon. Another sculpture, carved from porous stone, develops vertically through intertwined curves that seem to follow an invisible rhythm.
Helou has an extraordinary ability to make the eye travel. His forms encourage us to follow one line until it disappears behind another, then reappears somewhere unexpected. Every change of viewpoint offers a different composition.
The choice of material is particularly important. Marble allows smooth, luminous surfaces. Porous stone retains the irregularities and textures of its natural formation. Cedar wood introduces warmth, grain and an intimate connection with the Lebanese landscape. Each material responds differently to the sculptor’s hand, and Helou respects these individual qualities while guiding them toward his vision.
Heart, Head and Hands
Born in 1969, Helou studied at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts before specializing in sculpture in France. He later taught at ALBA, contributing to the education of younger artists.
His philosophy revolves around what he calls the “Triple H”: Heart, Head and Hands. Emotion inspires, thought directs and the hands negotiate with the material. This relationship explains the balance between spontaneity and precision that characterizes his sculptures.
His investigations into infinity and unusual frequencies extend beyond the physical object. In his work, emptiness becomes an active element of composition. The openings allow light to enter, creating shifting shadows and changing the perception of volume. A sculpture can appear compact from one angle and almost weightless from another.
The Beauty of What We Feel
Moving between these two exhibitions, we found ourselves thinking about the extraordinary diversity of sculptural expression. The same fundamental elements, volume, line, surface and space, can communicate such different sensations.
Karam invites us to consider our emotional lives, the burdens we accumulate and our desire for freedom. Helou awakens our curiosity about movement, continuity and the possibilities hidden within natural materials.
Both remind us of the pleasure of experiencing sculpture in person, of discovering its changing silhouettes and observing the dialogue between light and surface. And perhaps the greatest beauty lies in that very physical encounter, when the eye follows a curve, the mind completes a movement and a solid object suddenly feels wonderfully alive.
