An Article by C.J. (832 words, 4 min. read)
There is something about August in the Lebanese mountains that feels like a return to what matters. The days move at a gentler pace. The air is clear and scented with pine and ripe fruit. In Bhamdoun, just sixteen kilometers from the city, the heat gives way to a softer warmth. It is here, at the edge of the village, that Le Télégraphe de Belle-Vue stands above a valley of vineyards, facing both the sea and the sunset.
It is a place that seems made for stillness and celebration at once. And this summer, it becomes something even more special, a home for art.
Issa Halloum: Painting the Land into Memory
In the exhibition Over the Valley, artist Issa Halloum brings the Bekaa Valley to life in a series of paintings and sculptures that hold color, movement, and emotion in perfect balance. His work is deeply rooted in the Lebanese landscape, not just as a subject, but as a living memory. Every brushstroke speaks of home, of fields that stretch to the horizon, fruit trees heavy with ripeness, and skies that shift with the seasons.
Born in Kuwait and educated at the Lebanese University and later at the Brera Academy in Milan, Halloum studied the human form with intensity before turning his gaze outward. What followed was a practice that captured not only the visible beauty of Lebanon but also its quiet, enduring spirit. His art pulses with sunlight and story. His scenes are lived-in, warm, and full of life.
Art That Breathes With the Landscape
In Halloum’s paintings, the land is never empty. It teems with subtle detail, a laundry line blowing in the wind, terracotta pots arranged on a balcony, trees bursting with oranges, and goats grazing under olive branches. The palette is bold, with generous blues and golds that reflect the energy of the Levant. There is joy here, and serenity too. There are thick texture of oil paint and generous brushstrokes that pour emotions and energy onto the surface of the artwork.
Each canvas feels as though it holds a moment just after it happened, still glowing from the sun. His technique, influenced by post-impressionist masters, gives the works a tactile softness. You feel you could step inside them. You could hear the distant voices of a market, the clink of glass in a garden, the hum of a late summer afternoon.
A Dialogue Between Art and Place
The setting of Le Télégraphe makes this experience even more powerful. Built originally as a retreat for the French ambassador to Iraq and Jordan, and once the post from which messages were dispatched to France, the property is steeped in both history and beauty. Today, it is a boutique hotel and working winery, but it remains a place of connection.
The art and the space speak to one another. Halloum’s works remind the landscape just outside the window. They mirror the vineyard rows, the curve of the valley, and the light falling across stone. Guests find themselves surrounded by the very scenes they see in the paintings, as though reality and imagination have folded into one.
A Place for All the Senses
Staying at Le Télégraphe is a fully immersive experience. The wine carries its own story. Grown and made on-site, it reflects the richness of the soil and the care of those who tend it. From bold reds to crisp whites, every bottle holds the essence of Bhamdoun’s climate and tradition. Visitors are invited not only to drink but to meet the winemakers, to walk the land, and to understand how the valley shapes what ends up in the glass.
Art as Homecoming
For Issa Halloum, art is not a performance. It is an act of remembering. His works do not seek to idealize, but to preserve moments of peace, of labor, of daily beauty. They are a reminder that the soul of a place lives in its smallest details. That memory is not something distant, but something present, in the colors of our walls, in the way the sun falls through a fig tree, in the stillness after a harvest.
His exhibition at Le Télégraphe is a homecoming. The valley he paints is the one you wake up to. The golden fields he remembers are the same ones you see outside your window. And in that harmony, something stirs, sense of belonging, even for the first-time visitor.
An Invitation to Stay
To step into Over the Valley is to step into Lebanon itself, not as a destination, but as a feeling. A feeling of warmth. A feeling of familiarity. A sense that the land still holds us, still speaks in colors and shapes we can understand.
This August, come up the mountain. Stay a little longer. Sip the wine. Watch the sun fall slowly over the hills. And let Issa Halloum remind you, through his eyes and his hands, what it means to feel at home in the world.
