Art Reach Catalog

ArtReach 2026 TOM YOUNG X IC PAINTING STORIES

MAIN GATE LIGHT, IC BEIRUT CAMPUS 70cm x 55cm | $3,000 Inspired by a visit to the Ras Beirut Campus in May 2026, when Tom toured the school grounds and talked with art students in both pre-school and more advanced students. He was inspired by the vibrant energy and beautiful spring colours of blooming Bougainvillea and Oleander: expressive of the spirit and vision of the school, and what it’s aiming to achieve for Lebanon’s youth. Symbolically, a father walks his young son through the entrance gate, and into the sunlight beyond.

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ArtReach 2026

IC CAMPUS BUILDINGS, RAS BEIRUT 70cm x 55cm | $3,000 Inspired by a visit to the Ras Beirut Campus in May 2026, when Tom toured the school grounds and talked with art students in both pre-school and more advanced students. He was inspired by the layers of architectural history: newly renovated buildings dating from the school’s founding in Beirut in 1913 to contemporary structures, expressive of the continuity and vision of the school through uncertain times in the country.

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ArtReach 2026

INTO THE LIGHT, IC RAS BEIRUT 70cm x 55cm | $3,000 Inspired by a visit to the Ras Beirut Campus in May 2026, when Tom toured the school grounds and talked with art students in both pre-school and more advanced students. He was inspired by the vibrant energy and beautiful spring light.

The Rockefeller Hall embodies the roots of the school’s founding in 1913 on the right, contrasting with new sports facilities on the left; Tom has a personal connection here, having played a number of Touch Rugby games there, organised by the brainchild behind the ‘ArtReach’ project, Richard Bampfyldewho appears in the painting, walking into the light towards distant school students with IC communications manager Joelle Kahwaji.

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ArtReach 2026

VIEW FROM IC AIN AAR 70cm x 55cm | $3,000 Inspired by a visit to the Ain Aar Campus in June 2026, when Tom met students and painted this picture from life. Students engaged with Tom during their recess; they talked about techniques and approaches to creativity; they made their own suggestions about how the painting should develop.

Tom encouraged the students to join in the painting process too, mixing oil paint of his palette, and adding their own unique touches to the painting.

As such, this is a truly interactive, collaborative piece.

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ArtReach 2026 THE SEA BEYOND (BATROUN) 140cm x 110cm | $7,000 Based on a view of the Mediterranean from near Thoum village in North Lebanon, the trees and spring flowers behind my studio/gallery in Gemmayzeh, and flowers which have a special meaning for Tom: In the lower left of the composition are flowers connected to the memories of Tom’s ancestors and family in the UK. In the lower right of the composition there is a purple Iris Soforana, named after the village of Sofar in Lebanon, and indigenous to the area; a spectacular sight, and grows in just a few places; Tom saw it in the vineyards of Iris Domain in Bhamdoun; here is a connection with IC: Sarmad is an old friend of Tom’s, his children went to IC and his is sponsoring wine for the ArtReach auction event from his vineyards. Next to the Iris, are blooms of Gardenia which grow at IC Campus Beirut.

The inclusion of meaningful flowers which combine Tom’s two homelands of Lebanon and England is also inspired by his artist ancestors: his great-great aunt Marianne North, a pioneering traveller and painter of flora and fauna in every continent of the world in the 19th Century, and Tom’s maternal grandmother Dorothy Vaughan, an artist who loved painting flowers and taught him how to paint as a young boy.

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ArtReach 2026

BEIRUT FROM AIN AAR (SPRING BLOOMS) 110cm x 140cm | $8,000 Inspired by a visit to the Ain Aar Campus in June 2026, when Tom met students and painted from life. This painting was made later in Tom’s studio in Gemmayzeh, featuring the view from Ain Aar Campus, over nearby rooftops to Beirut and the sea beyond. As such, the composition is a narrative piece, symbolising the journey many students make from Ain Aar and eventually down to Beirut.

The Oleander and Gardenia flowers in the foreground evoke the positive fresh spirit of the children Tom met that day and are taken from the gardens of the Ras Beirut Campus, thereby bringing the story full circle: a fusion of past, present and future in a single image.

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ArtReach 2026 FLOWING EAST (BEIRUT/LONDON) 110cm x 140cm | $8,000 The painting evokes Tom’s life, embracing a shifting identity between East and West, and between two cities: Beirut and London. On the left of the composition is a view of Ras Beirut and the Corniche seafront seen from the top of the Holiday Inn: an iconic modernist tower which became the focal point of the early stages of the Civil War in Lebanon (1975-90).

It has been ruined and derelict ever since. Tom gained access to paint there in 2016. The ground floor is now a base for the Lebanese Army and forbidden for the public to enter.

The view of Ras Beirut includes the ‘Corniche’ seafront: where Tom went on the night he landed in Beirut for the first time in Spring 2006.

The view of Beirut blurs into a view of East London- a view seen from another iconic tower, in London- ‘The Shard’. Tom was there to meet a senior producer for Al Jazeera to discuss making a documentary about the Holiday Inn in Beirut for the series ‘War Hotels’. The Al Jazeera head office in London is in the Shard.

The view looks at the River Thames as it flows ‘East’, to the ‘Levant’.

The London view evokes ancestral connection: featuring rooftops of Wapping and the Docklands, where Tom’s great grandmother Mary-Ann-Jemima Allison was born and grew up. The two views are linked by the iconic Tower Bridge- a dual-tower structure.

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ArtReach 2026 GEMMAYZEH STORY 2026 150cm x 185cm | $12,000 The composition features the street, and building in which Tom’s studio and gallery is located in Gemmayzeh; layers of architectural history are painted in thin washes and thick impasto layers of oil paint; veils of memory and the energy of the present are all present here.

Tom was inspired by the courage and spirit of the youth who helped clean up and rebuild this part of historic Beirut after it was damaged in the port explosion on 4th August, 2020.

He chose to move his studio and gallery to this building soon after the tragedy, to play a part in the cultural revival of the neighbourhood as a conscious act of creative persistence.

New life rises from the rubble; flowers seen in many parts of the country bloom across the surface of urban drama; Lebanon’s chaotic exuberance is a constant source of inspiration. Life goes on..

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