About: Yvonne Ayoub

Yvonne Ayoub is a successful, award-winning UNESCO artist who currently divides her time between homes in London, Lebanon and Greece.

She exhibits her work regularly in Athens and on the beautiful island of Skiathos where, in 2008, having discovered a love and natural facility for teaching art, she established “PAINTING SKIATHOS’; an artist retreat, welcoming fellow artists and visitors from all over the globe, inviting them to explore and share their knowledge, ideas, philosophies and skills in a cross-cultural exchange, held in the spirit of generosity, tolerance, acceptance and mutual respect. She believes firmly in the words: ‘Vive La Difference!’.

Her own work can be found on her website: WWW.YVONNE-AYOUB.COM and PRINTS and GREETINGS CARDS of all her work can can be purchased at numerous online sites such as:

FINE ART AMERICA,

IMAGEKIND

ZAZZLE

On this blog she writes about her travel adventures and life as an artist on the beautiful Greek island of Skiathos

She is also the author of ‘PAINTING SKIATHOS’ – A Personal Vision’ a book which is available to purchase online at the  ‘BLURB BOOKSTORE’

Yvonne believes art is ‘Truly food for the soul’ and that it should be ‘Easily accessible, widely celebrated and freely enjoyed by all. It is a common language we all can share, regardless of any geographical, political, economical, cultural, racial or religious differences that might otherwise separate us’.

In her work, she uses a wide variety of media and a broad range of artistic disciplines in order to reflect and promote the rich diversity of the many fascinating cultures she has personally experienced on her travels. Presently, her greatest challenge is to capture the purity of light and vibrant intensity of colour that is unique to the Greek islands. At the same time, she has an ongoing passion for (and a keen desire to perpetuate) the customs, traditions, craftsmanship skills and techniques that are all-too-quickly disappearing from our modern world.

Background:

Born in Edinburgh, to a highly creative Austrian mother and English musician father (a military bandsman, serving with a Scottish regiment) Yvonne was the youngest of three children and spent an idyllic early childhood growing up in the wild, remote Scottish highlands. She often visited her grandmother in Vienna from whom she developed an enduring appreciation for the theatre, opera and her rich European cultural heritage. As a result the arts, in one form or another, have always played an important part in her life. But it was when she was 8, when her father took up a posting in the Middle East that her life-long love affair with foreign travel and a fascination for different cultures was really born and she’s lived a nomadic life, in search of artistic inspiration, ever since.

Her teens were spent boarding at an English ballet school where she was classically trained in the performing, creative and decorative arts, eventually forgoing the opportunity to pursue a fine art degree in favour of the more short-lived career as a ballet dancer.  Performing on stages all over the world, she continued to travel until she met her Lebanese husband in Dubai and she turned instead to teaching for the first years of marriage in Saudi Arabia and Canada. Finally settling in London to raise their two children, they formed (and ran together for over 20 years) a print and design company. Only once the children had flown the nest, could Yvonne at last return full-time, to her first love painting, and in seizing every opportunity since, today, five years on, she’s an established  freelance artist/teacher, illustrator, muralist and photographer who feels:

‘Truly blessed – life’s great adventure knows no bounds!

For me, the words of Thomas Paine (1737 – 1809) say it all:

“The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren and to do good is my religion” – Yvonne Ayoub 2009

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