Lisbeth Grail paints special pieces of the East

Living in the Caucasus for several years, she devotes her time to writing and above all to painting. The main topic of her work is focussed on the “Silk Road”.
The Silk Road, this important beam of tracks since Antiquity, linked the East to the West and made the empires of South, North, East and West communicate with each other for centuries. This powerful myth belongs to the realms of our imagination.

Living in that part of the world, she has been fascinated by these fabulous routes, the legends, the different local cultures, the customs, the influences, the peoples and the present reality that is part and parcel of our life.
During her various trips, while writing about the Silk Road, Lisbeth began to depict it on canvas: the magic of the colours, the strength of life, the delicacy, the refinement, resulting from such various influences and from the blending in space and time of numerous civilisations.
Her very special pieces of the East, filled with poetry, are made up with these cultures as well as with her imagination shaped by Prévert, the 20th century French poet. Will they carry you away in your longings for remote countries and the East?
Her paintings tell stories about various symbols such as the sun and the moon, the East and the West but also darkness and light, the following of days and nights that make up a journey.
The journey that witnessed the building and the destruction of civilisations and empires. The one that compels you to face life and rebirth.
The very journey where we build our-own self because it sends us back to our emotions and our origins.
Lisbeth has faith in the beauty of the world, in the brotherhood of man and in the ability of art to transcend men. She needs to be part and parcel of the world’s history... She is a woman of convictions, fighting for a Living Art.
Her wish is that, like the symbols surrounding the main subjects, her paintings suggest that history is a never-ending story, that those people suffering today are at the origin of our own civilizations. The peace symbol that is on most of her paintings, conveys her hope in peace, in the possibility of exchanges that make everyone richer.
She mainly paints animals on the Silk Road. They are a pretence for her to open a window on an imaginary world. Such animals were used to pull caravans but they were above all used as sumptuous presents for the princes reigning over these huge and stretchy spaces.
The very proud horses from the Ferghana Valley, the majestic elephants, the very few leopards or zebras which travelled towards China, as early as the sixth century B.C. to the greatest surprise of the population; or even camels, oxen, sacred bulls or legendary animals such as the unicorn, the Centaur…

Obviously, horses are her favourite theme.
She paints them in a quest of unreachable absolute. She sees in them a very powerful symbol, emblem of the cultures and the history of the countries where the artist is living in.
The horse also represents the action of the journey.
And it is a universal symbol; it has been given multiple powers in every mythology. Man has always sought to represent his conscience with images. He created emblems to build up his myths and the horse is one of the most constantly represented.
It reveals itself to the imagination of men, and since Prehistory, the horse has been depicted on the walls of caves. No one understands the meaning at the dawn of humanity, but once man has tamed the horse after so many centuries, this will be his most beautiful conquest. Greeks created Centaurs and myths filled themselves with unicorns. The horse has the power to cross through the visible and invisible world and become gods' mount from heaven to Earth. It is a mythical animal. Can you imagine it in the huge Mongol wilderness riding as fast as the wind, and maybe ridden by men’s dreams?


Lisbeth Grail is born in Nîmes in the South of France. She began to exhibit when she was 20 years old. At university, she specialized in art (history, plastic art, design and graphics).
She has been living in the Caucasus for several years and devotes now her time to painting and writing. She travels a lot in the East.
Some of her work can be found in private or public collections in Europe, the USA, Russia, Brazil, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and in the Caucasus.