Written by Liam Sibaii

Anas Al Braehe is a Syrian painter whose work explores themes of intimacy and human connection. He was born in 1991 in the city of Suwayda in southern Syria. Raised in a household shaped by his mother’s craft as a seamstress, he was enamoured from an early age by the interplay of colors and textures in the fabrics she worked with, slowly shaping his artistic sensibility.¹

In 2014, Al Braehe earned a Bachelor’s degree in Painting and Drawing from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus. While many of his peers relied on photographs as references, he consistently preferred working from live models. This proclivity towards models would considerably direct his artistic trajectory.

During the spring of the same year, while working in his studio, Al Braehe noticed his neighbor Manal, a young woman with Down syndrome, walking through a nearby bean field. He asked if he could paint her, and she agreed. This encounter marked the beginning of his most defining body of work: a series of intimate and deeply personal portraits of Manal.

These portraits captured Manal in candid and everyday settings. In Manal in Studio, 2016, she reclines on a couch with her arm resting on her head, a posture that conveys comfort and ease in the presence of the artist. In Manal with Umbrella, 2016, she rests her head on her closed fists while seated at a table, her pose equally unguarded and spontaneous. Al Braehe sought to capture genuine emotion through such moments of candor. Critics have compared his approach to that of Egon Schiele² – whom he cites as an influence³ – particularly in the way both artists centered their practices around a muse. Just as Schiele portrayed his wife Edith Harms to explore intimacy and vulnerability, Al Braehe painted Manal repeatedly to express similar themes of closeness and emotional depth.

The success of this series earned Al Braehe a scholarship to pursue a Master’s degree in Art Therapy and Psychology at the Lebanese University, which he completed in 2015. That same year, he relocated to Beirut, a move that would shape the next phase of his career. Following his graduation, he worked for a year with several non-governmental organizations in the city, where he employed puppetry and painting to support individuals facing psychological and emotional challenges. Although meaningful, the work took a toll on his own well-being, leading him to shift his focus entirely back to painting.

Returning to the canvas with renewed focus, Al Braehe shifted his attention from representations of an individual to representations of groups of people. Nonetheless, he maintained a commitment to themes of intimacy and human connection. He redirected his focus to the lives of Syrian refugees. These communities had grown rapidly in Lebanon after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, which by 2018 had displaced over five million Syrians abroad, with more than one million seeking refuge in Lebanon, the highest number per capita of any host country. Al Braehe wanted to depict the physical and emotional spaces in which the refugees operated through series such as Dream Catcher, exhibited at Agial Art Gallery in Beirut in 2018. It features imagery of Syrian refugees asleep either alone such as in When we Dream, 2018, or as a group of people such as in The Dream, 2018. When we Dream, 2018, is an oil painting that is part of the Ramzi Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation collection in Beirut a lone figure lies under a blanket patterned with semi-abstract motifs such as ladybugs, cars, and human figures, inspired by the embroidered textiles produced by women in Suwayda, including the artist’s mother. 

In The Dream Catcher, 2018, multiple figures share a crowded room, each covered by differently patterned blankets that echo the embroidery traditions of his hometown. The setting reflects the cramped conditions often faced by refugees in Lebanon, where proximity could foster both solidarity and claustrophobic tension.⁴ For Al Braehe, this state of unguarded and unconscious sleep⁵ allowed him to portray his subjects with the same candor and vulnerability that defined his earlier portraits of Manal.

Al Braehe extended this theme in his next series, Bab Al Hawa, 2020-2021, named after the border crossing between Syria and Turkey that became a major passage for displaced families during the war. Here, the sleeping figures appear in open spaces, lying on the backs of trucks as they migrate in search of safety. Works such as Bab Al Hawa 3, 2020, and Bab Al Hawa 5, 2021⁶, convey the precariousness of exile while maintaining the dreamlike quality that runs throughout his practice.

His most recent series, The Turn, 2024, portrays refugees as they arrive to their final destination, resting outdoors beneath vivid blankets in open landscapes.⁷ In some of the forty large-format oil paintings of this series, the fabrics merge seamlessly with their surroundings, echoing the textures of the earth⁸, while in others they stand out in sharp contrast⁹, signaling both fragility and resilience at this uncertain threshold.

Today, Al Braehe lives and works between Paris and Beirut.  His practice continues to revolve around the motif of sleep, which he explores both as a state of vulnerability and as a metaphor for displacement. Building on his earlier studies in art therapy, he seeks to incorporate a stronger research component into his ongoing projects.

Edited by Elsie Labban

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Notes

¹ Mira El-Khalil, “Artist Spotlight: The Story of Anas Al Braehe,” Anita Rogers Gallery, July 7, 2022, https://www.anitarogersgallery.com/news/artist-spotlight-the-story-of-anas-al-braehe.

² Zina Qabbani, “Braehe & Schiele: Bridging the East With the West,” artmejo, accessed July 28, 2025, https://artmejo.com/schiele-and-braehe-bridging-the-west-with-the-east/.

³ Anas Al Braehe, interview by Liam Sibai, Beirut, July 23, 2025, unpublished interview for the Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation.

⁴ Saleh Saeed, “Syria Crisis: Refugees in Lebanon, 1,” Disasters Emergency Committee, accessed July 28, 2025, https://www.dec.org.uk/story/syria-crisis-refugees-in-lebanon-1.

⁵ Risto Halonen et al., “SelfConscious Affect Is Modulated by Rapid Eye Movement Sleep but Not by Targeted Memory Reactivation: A Pilot Study,” Frontiers in Psychology 12 (December 13, 2021), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.730924.

⁶ Thierry Savatier, “Anas Albraehe, Bab Alhawa – Gate of the Wind – Gate of Exile,” Galerie Claude Lemand, accessed July 29, 2025, https://www.claude-lemand.com/exposition/anas-albraehe-bab-alhawa-gate-of.

⁷ Anas Al Braehe, Curriculum Vitae, Paris: mor-charpentier, 2025.

⁸ Anas Albraehe, “@anasalbraehe,” Instagram, accessed July 31, 2025, https://www.instagram.com/anasalbraehe/.

⁹ Agial Art Gallery & Saleh Barakat Gallery, “Albraehe, Anas,” Saleh Barakat Gallery, accessed July 31, 2025, https://salehbarakatgallery.com/Artists/Details/62/Albraehe-Anas.

Sources

Al Braehe, Anas. Curriculum Vitae. Paris: mor-charpentier, 2025. PDF.

Al Braehe, Anas. Interview by Liam Sibai. Beirut, July 23, 2025. Unpublished interview for the Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation.

Albraehe, Anas. “@anasalbraehe.” Instagram. Accessed July 31, 2025. https://www.instagram.com/anasalbraehe/.

Agial Art Gallery & Saleh Barakat Gallery. “Albraehe, Anas.” Saleh Barakat Gallery. Accessed July 31, 2025. https://salehbarakatgallery.com/Artists/Details/62/Albraehe-Anas.

Bucher, Nathalie Rosa. “Anas al-Braehe and His Ultimate Muse.” SyriaUntold. January 27, 2017. https://syriauntold.com/2017/01/27/anas-al-braehe-ultimate-muse/.

El-Khalil, Mira. “Artist Spotlight: The Story of Anas Al Braehe.” Anita Rogers Gallery. July 7, 2022. https://www.anitarogersgallery.com/news/artist-spotlight-the-story-of-anas-al-braehe.

Halonen, Risto, Liisa Kuula, Tommi Makkonen, et al. “SelfConscious Affect Is Modulated by Rapid Eye Movement Sleep but Not by Targeted Memory Reactivation: A Pilot Study.” Frontiers in Psychology 12 (December 13, 2021). https://doi.org/[insert DOI if available].

Merriam-Webster. “Muse.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Accessed July 29, 2025. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/muse.

Qabbani, Zina. “Braehe & Schiele: Bridging the East With the West.” artmejo. Accessed July 28, 2025. https://artmejo.com/schiele-and-braehe-bridging-the-west-with-the-east/.

Saeed, Saleh. “Syria Crisis: Refugees in Lebanon, 1.” Disasters Emergency Committee. Accessed July 28, 2025. https://www.dec.org.uk/story/syria-crisis-refugees-in-lebanon-1.

Savatier, Thierry. “Anas Albraehe, Bab Alhawa – Gate of the Wind – Gate of Exile.” Galerie Claude Lemand. Accessed July 29, 2025. https://www.claude-lemand.com/exposition/anas-albraehe-bab-alhawa-gate-of.