Chapter 3_Home_Text

A Raw Creation

Feeling a devoid of substance in his works, and struggling to justify his art to himself, In 1995, Rafik moves into a solitary drift once again, transitioning way from the predictable orderliness of his paintings by charting the direction of his artwork into unknown territory.

At this time, Rafik was observing and internalizing a fractured city, the compound feelings of political and social ambiguity placed on the “lost generation” of Lebanese youth, overlooked from the civil war. 

 Against all caution, Rafik feels compelled to speak out, casting some of his first works intended for the public to see to make a direct statement about the absurd undercurrent state of disillusionment, paranoia and despair he felt in current Lebanese politics and Beiruti cosmopolitan society.

 Rafik’s use of mixed-media including acrylic hand-paint on plywood, chalkboard and cardboard imagery, play-on-words, street signage, and advertising posters were depicting a new visual repertoire to help us see through power structures of ideology, propaganda, and advertising in bold new ways.

By taking the chances he wanted, speaking his mind, Majzoub, The Outsider, will become one of the first few Arab artists of the post-war generation to challenge the conventions of art, and position himself as a force to be reckoned with among contemporaries in the Arab art world and beyond.