Ranya Sarakbi

Ranya Sarakbi was born in 1973 and is Lebanese. She holds a BA in Sociology/Anthropology from the American University of Beirut, though the exact years of her studies are not documented publicly. She describes herself, and is consistently described by galleries and press, as a self-taught painter and sculptor with no formal art school training.

Her practice began with symbolic jewelry made with Lebanese artisans, the subject of a 2014 profile in The New York Times, which described her as a self-taught painter and sculptor "little known outside Lebanon" at the time. She later expanded into large-scale sculpture and object-based work. Her exhibition Biomechania was presented at the Beirut Art Center in 2012. Her best-known sculpture, Ouroboros, an approximately 11-meter bronze serpent assembled from over 16,000 cast units, was offered through Christie's in a Middle Eastern design context in 2020. She has been featured as a designer by House of Today, a Beirut-based platform for Lebanese design. There is no evidence that she has died; all located sources treat her as an active, living artist as of today.

Public critical commentary on Sarakbi's work is limited. The most substantial mainstream press coverage located is a 2014 New York Times feature on Lebanese jewelry design, which introduced her as a self-taught painter and sculptor working with local artisans on symbolic pieces. Design press covering the Ouroboros sculpture, including previews tied to its Christie's sale, has focused on its scale and construction (an eleven-meter serpent built from thousands of cast-bronze units) rather than offering sustained critical analysis. No verbatim evaluative quotes from named art critics in major outlets could be confirmed, so none are reproduced here.

Sarakbi's auction footprint is small and concentrated around a single major lot. Her sculpture Ouroboros was offered by Christie's London in an online Middle Eastern Modern & Contemporary Art and design sale, carrying a pre-sale estimate of GBP 120,000 to 180,000. No realized hammer or premium-inclusive price for that lot, and no other public sale exceeding that estimate, could be located in Christie's records or in secondary market databases. As a result, there is not yet a confirmed all-time auction record price, and any pricing narrative for her work should be treated as provisional given the limited transaction history.

There is no catalogue raisonne for Sarakbi's work and no confirmed museum collection holdings, so provenance and authenticity are best verified directly with the artist or with the design platforms, such as House of Today, that have exhibited her practice. Her auction history is essentially limited to a single well-documented lot, Ouroboros, for which only a pre-sale estimate, not a realized price, is publicly known. Given the thin public sales record and the absence of confirmed long-term gallery representation, collectors should treat her market as early-stage and verify any specific work's history independently before transacting.