Biography Rawda Nour, born in 1990, holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the Graphics Department at Alexandria University. She has received several awards, including first prize at the Youth Salon,…
Egypt
Cultural Narratives, commissioned by Rima Nasser, features works from established and emerging artists in the Middle
Iran
Born in Tehran, Iran in 1986, Sepideh Zamani completed her BFA in
Sculpture at the Art University of Tehran. She began her artistic
venture as a graphic designer, working in advertising companies.
United Arab Emirates
Shaikha El Kutbi is a visual artist who works primarily in photography, drawing, and installation art. Her work is self-reflexive, exploring themes of self-awareness and perceptibility and often blurring the line between fiction and reality.
Lebanon
Biography Born in 1969 in Lebanon, Anachar Basbous lives with his family in Rachana, a village renowned for its open-air sculptures overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Raised in a family of artists—his father,…
Jordan
Born in Cairo from a Palestinian Jordanian family. Fares Rizk studied fine art at Parson’s school of design and graduated with an M.F.A.
Palestine
Samia Halaby is a leading figure in the abstraction movement within the Arab world and a preeminent scholar of Palestinian Art.
Lebanon
Artwork
Iran
Artwork
Syria
Born in Damascus in 1964, Bassem Dahdouh studied art at the University of Damascus and received his PhD from Egypt’s Helwan University.
Iraq
Born in Babel in 1965, Ahmed Al Bahrani is a contemporary Iraqi artist and sculptor. After graduating from the Fine Arts Institute in Baghdad in 1988, he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts from 1992-94. Relocating to Qatar in 1998, he co-founded Mimar Gallery with architect Hazem Abu Naba’a and has exhibited regularly throughout the Middle East and internationally. In recent years, he earned a significant following in the Gulf art scene, where he has been featured in some of the region’s most prominent commercial art spaces, such as Art Sawa Gallery in Dubai and Albareh Art Gallery in Bahrain. He has been commissioned for a number of public works in Iraq, Qatar and across the Middle East. Constantly evolving his artistic approach, he works across different mediums, including painting, printmaking and reliefs. He lives and works in Qatar.
Iran
Born in Khuzestan, Iran and raised in London, Kourosh Salehi
studied traditional Persian painting as a child and later attended
art school in the UK. He is based in Abu Dhabi.
Lebanon
Artwork
Iraq
Born in Theeqar, Iraq in 1958, London-based Hanaa Malallah is a visual artist and educator. She received a bachelor’s degree in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad, an MA in Painting, a Ph.D.
Iran
Artwork
Iran
Artwork
Iran
Artwork
Syria
Gylan Safadi was born in Sweida, Syria in 1977 and studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Damascus.
Iraq
Mahmood Shubbar was born in Babel in 1965. He received a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Baghdad University in 1986 and later went on to receive his Ph.D. in Fine Arts.
Iran
Biography Habib Farajabadi, born in 1982 in Iran, is a painter and sculptor based in Tehran. He employs various tools like nails, wood stock, forks, and brushes to create his vibrant acrylic…
Lebanon
Jad El Khoury is best known for his fictitious characters, referred to as Potato Nose, which includes a series of doodled cartoon characters drawn in black outline with exaggerated yet simple features.
Palestine
Mohammed Joha was born in 1978 in Gaza. His paintings, though playful in style and bold in colour, offer a critique of Arab and Western media bias and their (mis)representation of Arab culture.
Syria
Born in Hama in 1952, Edward Shahda studied at the Suhail Ahdab Center in Hama and the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Damascus, before undertaking a residency at the Anatoli Klankov Atelier in Russia
Iran
Artwork
Syria
Born in Aleppo in 1972, self-taught artist Nihad Al Turk’s work focuses on the existential crisis of the individual caught up in power struggles between good and evil. Based in Beirut, Al Turk situates his work against a backdrop of literature and philosophy, painting a recurrent cast of mythical demons, outcasts, and antiheroes.
Syria
Born in Daraa, southwest Syria, in 1989, Mohammad Labash studied painting and drawing at Damascus University.
Lebanon
Nadim Karam is a multidisciplinary artist, whose work incorporates painting, drawing, and sculpture through a distinct artistic style that draws from Oriental and Japanese theories of space.
Iran
Biography Navid Azimi Sajadi, born in 1982 in Tehran, Iran, graduated in Painting from Azad University, Tehran, before moving to Rome to study at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma. He…
Lebanon
Born in 1980, Lebanese artist Alfred Tarazi received a degree in Graphic Design from the American University of Beirut. One of his great achievements is the “Krinzinger Projekte” residency, which took place in Vienna.
Iran
Biography Atousa Jannesari, born in Tehran, Iran, in 1981, holds a B.A. in Painting from Sooreh University, which she completed in 2007. She won the Karaj Annual Drawing Award in 2005. Atousa…
Lebanon
Mohammad El Rawas is one of Lebanon’s most prominent contemporary artists. He was born in 1951 in Beirut, Lebanon, where he studied at the Institute of Fine Arts at the Lebanese University, and later moved to London to study printmaking at the Slade School of Fine Art.
Iran
Biography Sara Abbasian, born in 1982 in Tehran, Iran, earned her BFA in Painting in 2014. Her dark, apocalyptic, black-and-white drawings explore the often inhumane behaviours of contemporary society. Her work reflects…
Jordan
Biography Zaid Shawwa, from Jordan, studied Engineering at the University of Jordan and earned an MBA from the American University in Dubai. He began with classic charcoal portraits and landscapes before transitioning…
Iran
Artwork
Lebanon
Artwork
Iraq
Born in Baghdad in 1939, Dia Azzawi started his artistic career in 1964, after graduating from the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad. In 1969, Azzawi formed the New Vision group (al-Ru’yya al-Jadidah), uniting fellow artists prioritising the ideological and cultural aspects of art above any aesthetic premise.
Jordan
Biography Ufemia Rizk studied at the American University of Beirut, Sorbonne University in Paris, and the Fahrelnissa Zeid Royal Institute of Fine Arts, where she focused on art. At Dawson College in…
Kuwait
Sami Mohammad is a Kuwaiti artist and sculptor considered one of the pioneers of cultural movements in Kuwait and throughout the region.
Egypt
Biography Perry El Ashmawi was born in Bahrain in 1988 to Egyptian parents. She earned a BA in Fine Arts, specialising in Painting and Drawing, from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, in 2009.…
Jordan
Artwork
Iran
Biography Sara Rahmanian, born in 1993 in Tehran, Iran, earned her BFA in Painting from the University of Art Tehran in 2016 and her MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University…
Egypt
Biography Hayam Abdel Baky is an Egyptian artist currently residing in Cairo. Born in 1972 in Kafr El-Sheikh, she is one of Egypt’s foremost contemporary artists. She earned her M.A. in Visual…
Lebanon
Born in Lebanon in 1978, Carla Salem is a papermaker and printmaker whose work explores the relationship between language and form.
Palestine
Dena Matar lives and works in Gaza, where she received a degree in Fine Art and Education from Al Aqsa University. Her dynamic use of color and line offers an optimistic and hopeful view of life in Gaza, lending a psychological dimension to her paintings, rather than representing a region crippled by Israeli incursions and blockades. Despite her young age and the profound challenges of living under siege, she has made a vital contribution to artistic production in Gaza through her paintings and by acting as a mentor for artists. She is a member of the ELTIQA artist collective in Gaza City and has participated in several local exhibitions and workshops in Gaza in cooperation with A.M. Qattan Foundation, the French Cultural Centre, and other institutions. Matar’s unique style, which critics have likened to the colorful and unique compositions of Juan Miro and Pablo Picasso, has gained her international recognition. Her work has been exhibited in Switzerland, Geneva, France, and the Mosaic Rooms in London as part of their ‘Occupied Space’ exhibition in 2008. In 2012, she was selected to participate in the artistic residence in Paris, Cité Internationale des Arts.
Iran
Biography Sadra Baniasadi, born in 1991 in Tehran, Iran, is a painter. He studied painting at Tehran Art University from 2010 to 2015 and began exhibiting his work in galleries during his…
Syria
Houman Al Sayed is best known for his large-scale paintings that depict alienated, shock-ridden subjects, whose disproportionately sized, swollen faces attest to their confusion and isolation.
Lebanon
Artwork
Lebanon
Artwork
United Arab Emirates
Ayesha Hadhir is an emerging Emirati visual artist working predominantly in textile, creating textured pieces – either embroidered materials mounted on screens or stand-alone larger-scale sculptural pieces –centralizing the materials she uses, namely brightly colored threads that are often left hanging and unstitched.
Syria
Nizar Othman is a visual artist born in Lebanon and of Syrian descent. Outhman began his professional career working as a journalist and caricaturist, for which he was awarded the Bronze medal at the Guangxi international comics in 2007 (University city Guangxi); the “Excellence Award at e Competition of Guangxi international comics in 2007 (University city Guangxi) China; a Special Honorary Prize – Competition of the International Journal of Rhino (Bosnia and Herzegovina) in 2008.
Iran
Artwork