Born in Saida, Lebanon, Samia Osseiran was raised in a political family. She began her artistic education at Beirut College for Women (now the Lebanese American University), earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1965. She pursued her studies in Florence, Italy, receiving a Master of Fine Arts in 1967 from the Pius XII Institute. She had a few exhibitions in Florence during her studies, most notably her solo exhibitions at Gallery Mazzuchelli in 1966 and 1967 and at Lo Sprone in 1967. Continuing to expand her training, she completed a course in Graphic Art at the John F. Kennedy Center in Beirut in 1970 and later received a diploma in Graphic Art from the University of Fine Arts in Tokyo in 1975, supported by a scholarship.

S. Osseiran was also an educator, teaching at the American Evangelical School for Girls in Saida and later serving as a professor of fine arts at Beirut University College between 1970 and 1972. In 1977, she founded the “Artisana of Saida and South Lebanon”, an initiative dedicated to cultivating crafts among women. Her artistic practice evolved through distinct phases and is characterised by earthy tones, contrasting scales and themes of creation and growth, whether through bodies or organic forms. She investigated the unseen, mapping organic and planetary connections with recurring motifs of nature, abstract bodies and collective presence of figures, as if continually turning toward and bearing witness to something unfolding.

Early in her career, S. Osseiran created black-and-white woodcut prints that reflected themes of suffering, loss and fatigue, as seen in works such as City No. 8 (1967) and Diana (1967). Her work often engaged with existential themes. In Sunset (1968), for instance, she explored perception and space through a dark corridor that opens into an off-centre sun suggesting a path that leads toward the unseen. These works bear affinities with the poetics of Etel Adnan (1925-2021), particularly in their quiet but forceful engagement with landscape as a bearer of political and emotional weight.

In this period until the 1970s, she explored ink on paper and oil on cardboard, often employing shading techniques to depict landscapes, rocks and celestial forms. Her compositions from this period that followed her studies evoke alternative landscapes, dreamlike textures and an interplay of light and darkness. Strongly influenced by her time in Japan, this experience opened her imagination to gardens and fantastical spaces, shaping a rich vocabulary. The late 1980s and 1990s saw a shift towards floral and still life compositions instilled with serenity, unlike her early work. Yet even in their quietness, these productions maintained a semi-figurative language. Ambiguity remained a key feature of S. Osseiran’s practice, though she occasionally addressed specific events more directly. Some paintings were dedicated to family members, while others, such as Le Massacre de Cana [The Massacre of Qana] (1996) donated to the Sursock Museum, stood as a direct act of witnessing and remembrance.

Her works are included in the collections of public and private institutions, such as the Beirut Museum of Art (BeMA), the Dalloul Art Foundation (DAF), the Sursock Museum in Beirut and the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah.