City Lights unfolds as a lyrical meditation on distance, desire, and the haunting pull of the urban night. The series began with a moment of rain, when Ghassan Zard, crossing a bridge, glimpsed the port below. What might have felt industrial or menacing became, through the blur of weather and myopic sight, a soft vision of cranes glowing with unexpected colour.

From the bay of Jounieh to the hills of Matn, the city returned to him in fragments: interrupted, fluid, unreachable. At times luminous, at others elusive, the lights became a recurring apparition, refracted through fear, fascination, and longing. Zard’s myopia shapes this vision; removing his glasses, he let the world dissolve into flou, allowing the canvas to carry the vibration of what’s felt more than seen.
Each work pulses like a musical phrase. A devoted melomane, Zard composes through rhythm and resonance. His brush was guided as much by Fauré’s Pavane as by the memory of voices in opera. Colours drift, break, recede, or swell in waves, as if echoing a score.

Returning to the series over the years, especially in moments of heightened anxiety, Zard searched again and again for those lights, for a sign that the city, even if distant, still shimmered.