Born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1948, Afaf Zurayk graduated from the American University of Beirut with a BA degree in Fine Arts in 1970, and pursued graduate studies at Harvard University, obtaining the MA degree in Fine Arts in 1972. She taught studio art and art history at Beirut University College (now the Lebanese American University) in Lebanon and drawing and painting in Continuing Education at the Corcoran College of Art and Design and Georgetown University, both in Washington, DC. She currently teaches painting at the American University of Beirut and the Lebanese American University; both in Beirut, Lebanon.

Afaf has held many solo exhibitions, both in Beirut and Washington, DC. She has also participated in a number of group shows most notably the exhibition “Forces of Change” held in 1994 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. Her work has been reviewed in The Washington Post, The Washington Review and the Arabic daily Al-Hayat among other publications. She is represented by the Janine Rubeiz Gallery, Beirut, and was for a time a member of the Foundry Gallery in Washington, DC.

Inspired and guided by both music and poetry, Afaf in her artwork boldly probes emotional experiences through turbulence to acceptance. Her style serves this vision by contemplating the human face and figure, and by playing motion against stillness, line against color, and active brushwork against solid spaces.

Afaf Zurayk now lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon.