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.…
Egypt
Cultural Narratives, commissioned by Rima Nasser, features works from established and emerging artists in the Middle
Iran
Artwork
Lebanon
Biography Samia Osseiran Jumblatt, born in Saida, South Lebanon, in 1944, studied Fine Arts at Beirut College for Women, graduating in 1965, and earned her MFA from the Pius XII Institute in…
Syria
Born in Damascus in 1991, Noor Bahjat lives and works in the United Arab Emirates.
Lebanon
Artwork
Lebanon
Artwork
Syria
Born in Damascus in 1968, Boutros Al-Maari studied printmaking in Syria and received a Doctorate in Social Anthropology from EHESS in Paris, France. Both cultural contexts are reflected in his distinctive paintings.
Lebanon
Zeina Badran was born in Tripoli and worked as a self-taught artist for several years before studying fine art at the Lebanese American University.
Iran
Biography Farsam Sangini, born in Tehran in 1988, is a contemporary figurative painter and art teacher. Self-taught in graphic design, painting, and animation, he has been teaching drawing, painting, composition, and anatomy…
Lebanon
Born in Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, Salwa Zeidan left Lebanon in the 1980s and settled in the United Arab Emirates, where she worked as a painter and a curator. She has contributed significantly to the regional art scene by opening the first contemporary art gallery in Abu Dhabi, in 1994, focusing on showing Emirate, Middle Eastern and international artists.
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…
Egypt
Biography Tayseer Hamed, born in Cairo in 1955, graduated from the Faculty of Applied Arts in 1978. He is a seasoned member of Egypt’s contemporary art vanguard. Throughout numerous solo exhibitions in…
Lebanon
Artwork
Lebanon
Born in Lebanon in 1957, Hala Choucair is a painter who is best known for her intricate paintings that focus on the minute detail of the objects she draws.
Iran
Biography Amin Montazeri, born in 1992 in Tehran, Iran, earned his BFA in Painting in 2014 and his MA in Painting in 2016 from Tehran’s University of Art. Montazeri creates detailed illustrative…
Iran
Artwork
Lebanon
Artwork
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.
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…
Iran
Biography The Ghasemi Brothers – Morteza, Sina, and Mojtaba Ghasemi Sheelsar – have been collaborating since 2015. While they each pursue their own painting projects individually, they also come together to work…
Lebanon
Joseph Harb was born in Beirut in 1964 and studied at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) and the Lebanese University. His paintings of seemingly disparate objects that borrow techniques from collage point to Harb’s desire to blur the formal artistic boundaries in his abstract mixed media works.
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.
Lebanon
Artwork
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…
Lebanon
Born in Saida in 1979, Tagreed Darghouth studied painting and sculpture at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Art.
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…
Palestine
Ayman Essa lives and works in Gaza. He obtained his BA in Fine Arts, specializing in Photography, from Al-Najah University in Nablus in 1999 and holds a Master’s from Helwan University in Egypt. His distinct color palette comprised of mainly blue, red and pinkish hues, defines his bold large-scale figurative paintings series. Focusing solely on the female form, Essa’s works are recognizable through their exaggerated, curvaceous forms and at times coquettish gestures. He has participated in several group exhibitions including The Path at Dar Al-Karameh Hall in 1999 and the Red Crescent Society in Gaza in 2001. His work has also been exhibited internationally, including the Biennial for Young Artists in Rome in 1999 and the We Will Become exhibition (2004-5) which involved ten artists traveling from Gaza to several cities in France.
Iran
Artwork
Lebanon
Born in Damascus in 1942, Simone Fattal studied philosophy in Paris and Beirut before emigrating to California in 1980, during the Lebanese Civil War.
Lebanon
Born in 1959 in Deir El Kamar, Lebanon Jacques Rizkallah graduated from the Lebanese University of Fine Arts, after which he studied Mural and Fresco Painting in Rome, Italy. His abstract works explode with color.
Iraq
Born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1960, Sadik Kwaish Alfraji lives and works in Amersfoort, Netherlands. In 1987, he received a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad and a diploma in Graphic Design from CHK Constantin Huygens in the Netherlands.
Lebanon
Artwork
Syria
Gylan Safadi was born in Sweida, Syria in 1977 and studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Damascus.
Iran
Artwork
Lebanon
Artwork
United Arab Emirates
Hussain Sharif is one of the United Arab Emirates’ foremost
conceptual artists, who has contributed widely to the development
of art in his native country, founding the Emirates Fine Art Society
in Sharjah along with his brother, Hassan Sharif, and Mohammed
Kazem, Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim and Abdullah Al Saadi.
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…
United Arab Emirates
Born in Al-Ain city, United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 1987, Saoud Al Dhaheri [RF1] joined the Higher Colleges of Technology Photography Club, and later the Emirates Photography Society, to pursue his artistic passion.
Lebanon
Born in Beirut in 1973, Raffi Yedalian studied Etching at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Art and Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Art Toros Roslin. Yadalian’s etchings, paintings and wood and bronze sculptures are characterized by stylized human faces whose angular features convey a sense of eternal longing.
Syria
Born in Homs in 1977, Mouteea Murad studied Fine Arts at the University of Damascus. His works are inspired by traditional Islamic art in which spirituality and formalism are unified in geometric form.
Syria
Born in Aleppo, Syria in 1949, Jean Boghossian is an abstract, multidisciplinary
artist of Armenian descent. He studied Economics and Sociology at Saint Joseph
University (USJ) in Beirut while working for the family jewellery business. In 1975,
he moved to Belgium to escape the civil war in Lebanon.
Lebanon
Ayman Baalbaki was born in Adeisseh in 1975, the same year the Lebanese civil war began. A lot of his work tackles this conflict and its aftermath. It looks at destruction, displacement, loss, identity, and collective memory. Baalbaki is best-known for his large-scale paintings, executed primarily in thick acrylic paint, distinct for their sense of organised chaos.
Iran
Artwork
Egypt
Biography Nehad Saeed is a Cairo-based artist with a bachelor’s degree in graphic design and a master’s degree in fine arts from Helwan University, Cairo. She has participated in several biennials, including…
Iran
Biography Bahareh Navabi, born in 1985 in Tehran, Iran, received her BFA in arts and MFA from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Her work combines hyper-realistic portrait drawing…
Iran
Born in Karaj, Iran in 1987, Mirmohammad Fattahi obtained a
diploma in painting from the School of Fine Arts in Iran, followed by
a BA in painting from Soore Art University of Tehran.
Iraq
Born in 1982, Athier Mousawi lives and works between Paris, London, and Istanbul, and holds a graduate degree in Communication Design with Illustration from Central Saint Martins, UK. In recent years Athier Mousawi’s work has centred on posing unanswerable questions against undefined answers, forming a visual narrative between the two. Since 2007, the subject of much of his work has been Iraq and his diasporic relationship to his foreign homeland, as well as the concept of nostalgic referencing in how we idolise and remember our past, present, and future. Separate to his artistic practice, Athier has worked extensively as an educator in the UK and abroad. For three consecutive years, beginning in 2007, Athier worked as a British Museum Arab Artist in Residence, working in schools throughout the UK. In 2011, he was selected to serve as the Chasing Mirrors Artist in Residence at the National Portrait Gallery, leading workshops in community centres across London. Athier has also worked in a number of refugee camps as a workshop leader in Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan, and in 2014 was invited by the Palestinian Museum as a Visiting Artist to conduct workshops with children in the West Bank. In 2015, he was selected to work at the artist-run interdisciplinary space Beirut Art Residency. Athier has participated in many solo and group exhibitions including in Beirut, Dubai, Geneva, London, Jeddah and Tashkent.
Egypt
One of Egypt’s foremost contemporary artists, Hossam Dirar works across painting, video, sound, and installation art. Born in Cairo in 1978, Dirar graduated from the faculty of Applied Arts, at Helwan University, and later went on to participate in art, photography, and graphic workshops.
Lebanon
Biography Nada Rizk is a Lebanese Finnish artist specialising in ceramics and bronze. She holds a Master’s degree in Political Science and International Relations from the London School of Economics and a…
Lebanon
Artwork