Helen Zughaib was born in Beirut, Lebanon, living mostly in the Middle East and Europe before coming to the United States to study art at Syracuse University, earning her BFA from the College of Visual and Performing Arts. Helen currently lives and works in Washington, DC, as an artist. She paints primarily in gouache and ink on board and canvas. More recently, she has worked with wood, shoes, and cloth in mixed media installations.

Her work has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums in the United States, Europe and Lebanon. Her paintings are included in many private and public collections, including the White House, World Bank, Library of Congress, US Consulate General, Vancouver, Canada, American Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, the Arab American National Museum in Detroit, Michigan, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Her paintings are included in the DC Art Bank Collection and she has received the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Fellowship award in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. Her work has been included in Art in Embassy State Department exhibitions abroad, including Brunei, Nicaragua, Mauritius, Iraq, Belgium, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Helen has served as Cultural Envoy to Palestine, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia. The John F. Kennedy Center/REACH has selected Helen as a member of 2021 Inaugural Social Practice Residency. Her paintings have been gifted to heads of state by President Obama and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.