Fady Ferhi

FADY FERHI “Regard vers l’infini” Born in 1962, painter Fady Ferhi spent most of her life in Brive-la-Gaillarde, in Corrèze, before moving to the Paris region in 2004. Although she graduated in fashion, she left her studies in design to marry, have children, and pursue a career in management until 2007. However, life had other plans. A sudden and tragic event altered her life’s course, leading her to painting as the only way to express her emotions and free herself. Fady Ferhi joined the Croqueurs de vie studio, led by Isabelle Forestier (artist name Isabela Hiti), a painter trained at the Beaux-Arts of Paris. She spent four years learning composition, materials, and color theory. In 2018, she also took history of art and civilization courses at the École du Louvre to deepen her knowledge. Her painting is defined by the eruption of color, often in compositions centered on a vertical axis, set against backgrounds of glazes that evoke a timeless, immaterial space. Her style is gestural, with the brush swirling through dense colors, giving the impression that the forms are levitating. Influenced by Zao Wou-Ki, Chu Teh Chun, Jackson Pollock, Joan Mitchell, and Sam Francis, Fady Ferhi belongs to the lineage of the New School of Paris, later known as the European movement of Lyric Abstraction. Like artists of this movement, who were barely twenty when Europe was invaded in 1940, Fady Ferhi seeks to create a new, sensitive, lyrical abstract art—one that is sensory, gestural, and informal. These artists wanted to escape the influence of Picasso and the resurgence of Geometric Abstraction. In response to the suffering of the Occupation, these artists aimed to create a liberated painting—purely pictorial, far from narrative or ideological art, using only essential pictorial elements. Fady Ferhi’s energy flows are materialized through color and spontaneous, controlled gestures in her abstract canvases, which serve as tools for communication and part of a search for personal and artistic reconstruction. Motivated by the idea of sharing, she participates in artistic activities led by art therapist Laurent Jeandra at EDVO in Val d’Oise, working for the social reintegration of people in need. She also assists young students at AFPA in Stains and participates in ART CŒUR, a medical association raising awareness and preventing cardiovascular accidents in women. Fady Ferhi believes that art strengthens, calms, and reveals life’s mysteries, beauty, and grandeur. Beyond the formal aspects of her painting, the driving force of her expression lies in the invisible. She says that a perfect work has a soul, spiritual depth—a place where dreams and intuitions harmonize, inviting the viewer to engage their imagination and emotions. The catalyst for her work was the shock of losing a loved one. “This hand holding the brush takes pleasure in painting your radiant face in every beam of sunlight, in every full moon, in every spring of water that bursts from the earth, in every bird’s flight, in every budding flower… ‘Hymn to life.’ Thank you for this lesson in life.” Rather than using figuration to express these movements of the soul, Fady Ferhi turns to abstraction, the only way to express the inexpressible. Before her canvases, the gaze drifts into other dimensions, where emerging forms, suspended in a haze, lead our subconscious into a world of perpetual motion. There, emotional responses—whether joy or nostalgia—guide us to a place beyond, where the spirit merges. Fady Ferhi works only in a contemplative state, guided by the material and the unexpected accidents in her process. She uses acrylics, pure pigments mixed with diluents, and dampened cellophane applied to the canvas, creating random forms she reworks with ink. This alchemy reveals, through glazes and resin, the depth and luminous presence of abstract forms from an infinite world. Like Jackson Pollock, the first American abstract expressionist, who used pouring and dripping techniques in a trance-like state, Fady Ferhi frees her hand. Pollock’s work was a statement of existence, energy, and the forces within him: “my painting is me.” This allowed him to exorcise his demons amid his difficult life. Could there be a form of action painting in Fady Ferhi’s work that allows her to confront life and express her emotions spontaneously? Undoubtedly, her paintings transport us to vibrant, condensed worlds that guide us toward infinity. Jean-Christophe Paolini President of the Society of Fine Arts of Boulogne-Billancourt Honorary Curator of the Collections of the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris Exhibition Curator.