image
ArtPeople

by Alexandra Mansilla

From Canvas To Camera: 5 Artists From Kuwait To Know

8 May 2025

Onus, 2023, Monira Al Qadiri

We are always on the lookout for talented and inspiring voices from the Middle East, and lately, we have been blown away by a wave of incredible artists from Kuwait. Think haunting photos of abandoned landscapes, sculptures tackling the environmental toll of oil, intentionally unfinished portraits, explorations of the human body, and striking shots of Kuwait’s modern water supply system. It is a seriously exciting mix of work you need to see.

Aziz Motawa

Aziz Motawa is a Kuwaiti visual artist and researcher whose work spans photography, video, installation, and sound. His practice zooms in on overlooked spaces — where nature, industry, and personal histories collide — especially along Kuwait’s shifting coastlines. With an intuitive, almost tactile approach, Motawa uses his camera to trace the delicate push and pull between people and their environment.
In 2023, he presented his solo show Ala Taraf Lisan Al Ard at The Sultan Gallery, bringing together eight years of research into these fragile landscapes and exploring themes of memory, loss, and ecological change.
image

Instagram: @azizmotawa

Monira Al Qadiri

Raised in Kuwait and educated in Japan — where she earned a PhD in Intermedia Art — Monira Al Qadiri digs deep into the Gulf’s cultural history. Her work zeroes in on "petro-culture," drawing sharp parallels between the region’s pearl-diving roots and its oil-fueled present.
image

Deep Float, 2017, Monira Al Qadiri

Her art has appeared on major international stages, including the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, where she debuted Orbital, a series of 3D-printed sculptures riffing on oil drill heads. She has also had solo shows at big-name institutions like the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Haus der Kunst in Munich, and Kunsthaus Bregenz.
image

Automaton, 2024, Monira Al Qadiri

Ali Alamdar

Ali Alamdar is a Kuwaiti-born, Houston-based artist who reimagines portraiture as a deep dive into identity, vulnerability, and emotional nuance. Since 2016, he has developed a signature style of intentionally unfinished portraits — figures left partially unresolved — that push back against polished ideals of beauty. His work lives in the tension between presence and absence, inviting viewers to sit with the raw, imperfect edges of what it means to be human.
“My goal is not to create perfect images but to capture the essence of what it means to be human,” Alamdar says. “I find beauty in the imperfections, the crooked lines, and the unfinished edges, because they carry the weight of authenticity. Art, for me, is about preserving the fleeting, holding onto the moments and emotions that often go unnoticed.”

Huda Abdulmughni

Huda Abdulmughni's photos capture the quiet poetry of everyday life. Trained in interior design in Amman in the late ’80s, she brings a sharp eye for space and composition to her images. Her portraits are intimate and unvarnished, often shot in her subjects’ own environments with natural light and familiar objects, telling stories that feel both personal and deeply authentic.
image
image
image

Fading Facades, 2023, Huda Abdulmughni

Her work has been shown internationally, including at the International Women In Photo Association and the Africa Foto Fair, reflecting her commitment to amplifying diverse voices.
image
image
image

East Ahmadi Market, 2015, Huda Abdulmughni

Alymamah Rashed

Alymamah Rashed is a Kuwaiti visual artist whose work is rooted in the body — but never in a literal way. Her paintings are filled with fluid, surreal figures she calls “bodified spirits,” exploring emotion, identity, and spirituality all at once. Eyes appear often in her work — sometimes singular and searching, sometimes multiplied — like portals into something deeper and unseen.
At Art Dubai 2025, Rashed unveiled a new piece in collaboration with Piaget. Titled Your Love Moves Around My Trapeze Sun (Will You Hold Our Glistening Light?), the work reimagines a watch dial as a glowing sun, with her signature blue figures orbiting around it. Using lapis pigment, gold leaf, and touches of gold mica, the piece mixes myth, movement, and fine detail into something bold and luminous.