Helen Zughaib was born in Beirut, Lebanon, living mostly in the Middle East and Europe before moving to the United States to study art at Syracuse University, earning her BFA from the College of Visual and Performing Arts.
Her work has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums in the United States, Europe and Lebanon. Her paintings are included in many private and public collections, including the White House, World Bank, Library of Congress, US Consulate, Vancouver, Canada, American Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, the Arab American National Museum in Detroit, the Minneapolis
Institute of Art, and the Barjeel Art Foundation Collection. Her paintings are also included in the DC Art Bank Collection and she has received the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Fellowship award each year since 2015.
Her work has been included in Art in Embassy State Department exhibitions abroad, including Brunei, Nicaragua, Mauritius, Iraq, Belgium, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Sweden. Helen has served as Cultural Envoy to Palestine, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia. The John F. Kennedy Center/REACH, in Washington, DC, has selected Helen for the 2021-2023 Inaugural Social Impact Practice residency. Her paintings have been gifted to heads of state by President Obama and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.
Zughaib’s work is ultimately about creating empathy. Creating a shared space for introspection and dialogue. She asks the viewer to see through someone else’s eyes, to walk in another’s shoes. To accept the “other.” To reject divisiveness. To promote acceptance and understanding and to reject violence and subjugation of anyone anywhere. To give voice to the voiceless, to heal, and to reflect in our shared humanity.
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