Galerie Claude Lemand

RIBAL MOLAEB. THE MUSIC OF COLORS. Recent Paintings.
___

Claude Lemand.
This is the title of the first solo exhi­bi­tion in Paris of the young vir­tuoso Ribal Molaeb, a Lebanese musi­cian and painter, born in 1992 and living in Europe since the age of sev­en­teen.
Ribal Molaeb seduced me with his inno­va­tive and mas­tered com­po­si­tions, his rich, har­mo­nious and daz­zling colors, his uni­ver­salist philo­soph­ical and spir­i­tu­alist inspi­ra­tion, his musical and pic­to­rial science cre­ating a remark­able and sin­gular poetic uni­verse.
___

Ribal Molaeb.
" Each painter paints the cos­mogony of him­self. Our sub­con­scious is full of images from our child­hood and maybe some­times from our past lives. Despite leaving Lebanon aged 17, when I dream at night, the dreams are always coming from my child­hood home.

I don’t wait for inspi­ra­tion and I don’t need exte­rior ele­ments to inspire me. I can easily paint the Mediterranean Sea while working in my studio in Zürich. This is because the brain has a vast amount of data. I pro­gress my data, in colors and forms, on a canvas.

I’ve also learned a great deal about how to paint while thinking as a musi­cian. My art and music undoubt­edly com­ple­ment each other. I build my paint­ings like any musical com­po­si­tion, on the basis of har­mony, move­ment, rhythm, dynamics, accents and even cer­tain ‘into­na­tion’ between the colors. I use my under­standing of clas­sical music theory and com­po­si­tions in order to pro­duce my paint­ings.

I take refuge in painting. My work became meta­phys­ical; how many dimen­sions can I seize with my colors and shapes. What unseen world can I create. To be an artist is to con­stantly pro­duce your exile.

The Music of colors is an exhi­bi­tion who shows how my musical edu­ca­tion con­tributed to the com­po­si­tion and use of color in my paint­ings. » (Ribal Molaeb)
___

Ribal Molaeb, Beirut, 2020.
« Beirut, a the­atrical drama. A beauty that hurts. This painting depicts the dra­matic tragedy of Beirut explo­sion in 2020. The sea is dark with a cloud hinting to Mark Rothko’s spir­i­tual painting. Beirut, with its people, like a wild Wagnerian opera. »
___

Ribal Molaeb, The Mountain, 2020.
« A moun­tain, an ancient refuge, a home. Soil, stone, water­falls, trees and houses ascending up. It is not just a place. It is a living human entity with great extended roots that go back to the ancient civ­i­liza­tions of Lebanon. »