Najla El Zein

Najla El Zein (born 1983) is a Lebanese artist and designer.

Biography
Najla El Zein was born in Beirut in 1983. She was raised in Paris, where she moved at the age of two. She studied interior architecture and product design at the École Camondo school of art in Paris.

In 2019 El Zein was commissioned by the Qatar Museums Authority to design Us, Her, Him, a limestone sculpture located in Flag Plaza  which was completed in 2022. Also in 2019, El Zein staged her first solo show, Transitions, at the Friedman Benda Gallery in New York. The title of the exhibition and the pieces she created were inspired by her experience of the "emotional and physical transformation" of pregnancy.

Following the 2020 Beirut explosion, El Zein produced a series of sculptural pieces titled 6.07, the name being a reference to the time of the blast. The proceeds from the sale of the pieces were donated to a local NGO called Beb w’ Shebbek.

Her work has been exhibited at and acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Dallas Museum of Art, TX. Her work was also included in the exhibition Mirror Mirror: Reflections on Design at Chatsworth at Chatsworth House, and The New Transcendence at Friedman Benda Gallery, NY (both curated by Glenn Adamson).

She has studios in Amsterdam and Beirut.