I have told you a hundred times now that we are always on the lookout for talented people — and sometimes, rather conveniently, they find us first. That is exactly what happened with Ali Aqeel: I came across his work mid-scroll on Instagram and immediately stopped — partly for the paintings themselves, and partly because I realised this was an artist only just beginning to make his way onto the Iraqi art scene, while already drawing quite an audience online.

His story is one that began with the colouring books his mother used to bring home for him and has, somewhat wonderfully, led to enormous, colour-drenched canvases now stacking up in his flat — all in preparation for his first solo exhibition later this year.

So, naturally, we got talking — about the memories behind those paintings, his life as a young artist in Iraq, his hopes and nerves ahead of the exhibition, and what it actually feels like to be living and creating in Iraq today.

— Your bio describes you as an artist, model and dentist. How do those three very different worlds fit together?

— Here in the Middle East, there is often this sense that you are meant to tick certain boxes — and I suppose I have ended up ticking three at once, though none of them arrived in the order people might expect.

Art came first, long before the other two were even on the horizon. I have been drawing and painting since I was about four. Like most children, I started off scribbling away happily, but unlike most, I simply never grew out of it — it has stayed my first love ever since.

Dentistry followed, mostly out of necessity rather than passion. My parents expected me to finish my studies and settle into a "proper" profession, so that is the road I took. As it turns out, I am rather glad I did — I genuinely enjoy the work, and it has taught me a great deal about precision and attention to detail.

Modelling came last, almost by accident, and it is the one that changed me the most. I have been at it for about four years now — mostly advertising and commercial work, including campaigns for Mercedes-Benz, BMW here in Iraq, Careem and a handful of local brands. Standing in front of a camera knocked down a lot of walls I didn't even realise I had built.

And then there is art again, tying it all together — the most emotional strand of the three. It is my way of saying the things I can't quite put into words, and of reaching people through feeling rather than explanation.

— You are currently working on a new exhibition that you haven't announced yet. What can you tell us about it?

— It is still very much under wraps — not a single piece has made it onto Instagram yet, so consider this a proper exclusive. I have finished about five paintings so far, and I am aiming for roughly 15 by the time it is done.

It is called House of Memories, and the idea came about almost by stubbornness, really. When I first sat down to plan an exhibition, I knew I didn't want a random assortment of paintings that happened to hang on the same wall — I wanted them to talk to each other. I am someone who clings to memories rather fiercely, and I kept circling back to the house I grew up in.

I think nearly everyone has a place like that tucked away somewhere — the family home where all the small, unremarkable things happened, and which somehow end up meaning the most. So I started picking apart individual memories from that house and turning each one into its own painting. What I would love is for people to wander through the collection and spot flickers of their own childhood in there, even though every scene is technically mine.

But the more of those memories I turned into paintings, the more attached to the works I became. I was chatting to a friend about it the other day and blurted out, “I don’t actually know if I want to sell these.” I have spent months living inside these memories, painting them one by one, and now the thought of handing them over to someone else feels almost like giving away a piece of the house itself.

— Why does your childhood home still hold such a strong place in your memory?

— We moved out about seven years ago, but I had lived there for something like 25 years before that — so really, most of my life happened in that house. I started painting there. School, then college, all played out under that roof. Birthdays, family gatherings, the sort of small everyday moments nobody thinks to write down at the time — and yet they are the ones that end up carrying the most weight later on.

The odd thing is, the house has never quite let go of me either. I still dream about it — twice a month, if I had to guess. I will be back inside it, something ordinary will be happening, and it is as if a corner of my mind simply never moved out.

— Looking at your work, I assumed you had formal art training. But you are entirely self-taught. How did you learn?

— Completely self-taught, yes — not a single lesson. I started drawing around four, and everything since has just been years of quietly experimenting on my own. Crayons, pencils, graphite, oils, acrylics — I have worked my way through most of it at one point or another.

For about a decade, for instance, I lived almost entirely in pencil and graphite, so that whole stretch of work is far more monochrome than anything I make now. These days I have swung the other way completely — big canvases, bold acrylic colour, the works.

There was no artist tucked away in the family teaching me the ropes, and no one in my circle who really painted or drew either. So perhaps surprisingly, colouring books did a lot of the early teaching. My mother used to take me to the local bookshop every week to pick out new ones, and eventually I had worked through practically everything on the shelf — so I started buying the same ones again. Somewhere along the way, filling in someone else’s outlines turned into sketching my own.

From there, school gave me the encouragement to keep going. My teachers and family were tremendously supportive, and I entered the annual school exhibition every year without fail. I kept coming out on top, which gave me every reason to carry on — even when university eventually pulled me in a completely different direction.

— Your portrait of the Arab singer feels like an important work in that transition. What is the story behind it?

— Funnily enough, it started as a favour — a friend asked me to paint Umm Kulthum, one of the great icons of Arabic music, for him. Nothing grander than that. At that scale, though, it was properly new territory for me; I hadn’t tackled a portrait that size before. So my thinking was simply, right, let’s see what happens.

Once it was finished, I put it up on Instagram and it took off in a way I really hadn’t expected. I think that says far more about her than it does about me, if I am honest — she is an icon, full stop. Her music somehow stays relevant no matter the generation: my parents listen to her, my friends listen to her, people decades apart all seem to feel the same pull towards her.

— The two paintings of a man and a woman were actually how I first discovered your work. Who are they, and is there a story behind them?

— Those came out of a collaboration with an interior designer here in Iraq. He was working on a space and gave me complete freedom — showed me the project and simply said, "suggest whatever you want to paint."

The wall in question was large and needed colour, and I have always been drawn to a bit of drama in a painting. As soon as I saw it, I knew it called for two works rather than one. But I didn't want them simply hanging side by side; I wanted a sense of connection between them, as though something unspoken were passing from one to the other.

The style itself was entirely new for me — at that point I was still experimenting a great deal, testing ideas to see where they led. Then Instagram did what it sometimes does: I posted the works, they travelled further than expected, and I had a message from someone in Pakistan who had fallen for the pair and wanted his own version. It turned out he owned a gallery so I painted a second set and shipped the works over — an unexpected turn for something that had started as an interior project in Iraq.

The story hasn't ended there, either. He has since invited me to put together an exhibition in Pakistan next year in that same style, so those two paintings have opened up an entirely new audience for me. People still write to me about them now. Interestingly, a few friends suggested I build my first exhibition around that style, given how well it was received. I chose not to: for something carrying my own name, I wanted the work to feel far more personal and recognisably mine — which is really where House of Memories began.

— What is the art scene in Iraq actually like today?

— It is remarkably vibrant, and I think that surprises people looking in from outside, simply because it isn't the side of the country they usually see. Art here is anything but new or niche — Iraq has an extraordinarily rich cultural history, and that relationship with art runs deep, well beyond anything recent.

We have important figures from older generations, plenty of emerging artists coming up now, and everything in between. There are galleries, workshops, exhibitions, and — this tends to catch people off guard — a genuinely active community of collectors. Works here can sell for very serious sums, and there are no shortage of people actively buying and following what is being made.

— Iraq has one of the youngest populations in the region. Does Baghdad feel like a young city?

— Very much so, though what makes Baghdad genuinely interesting is the contrast rather than the youth alone. It is an ancient city, and yet so much of what is happening within it now is being driven by people who are anything but ancient. The two worlds seem to sit right on top of each other.

There are pockets of the city where history is still very much present, deliberately preserved, and then this new generation pressing forward alongside it — starting businesses and agencies, opening cafés, building brands, importing ideas that simply wouldn't have taken root here ten years ago.

Café culture is probably the clearest example. It has become extraordinarily lively. There is a real appetite for new places and new concepts, and when something interesting opens, it can become the talk of the city almost overnight.

— What is the biggest difference between Baghdad today and the city you knew ten years ago?

— You notice it almost instantly in the streets and the skyline. A decade ago, the city felt visually a little more chaotic. Now there is far more thought going into how it looks and how people move through it — construction everywhere, and skyscrapers going up at a scale that simply wasn’t there before.

Part of that is the younger generation coming of age at a very different moment for Iraq. The people opening businesses and shaping the city today were still children ten or fifteen years ago, when the country was going through extremely difficult years that inevitably held its development back. Now that generation has grown up, and there is finally more space for them to build, experiment and change the city around them.

— What does a typical Friday in Baghdad look like for you?

— Friday, for me, is deliberately slow. The week tends to be hectic, so the first order of business is simply sleeping for as long as I am allowed. But really, Friday belongs to family. Everyone’s schedules pull in different directions during the week, so this is when we come back together — round the table, favourite dishes on offer, plenty of laughing and catching up. That isn't just a quirk of my own family either. Closeness of that kind runs right through Iraqi culture, and Friday is very much the day everyone ends up around the same table.

And naturally, food is a huge part of that. Iraqis are serious eaters, which makes dieting here something of a losing battle. Dolma would top my list for anyone wanting a way in. Versions exist across the region, but Iraqi dolma has its own character — and if you are after the best one, I am not sending you to a restaurant. My mother’s is unbeatable.

Then there is masgouf — fish cooked beside an open fire until it takes on this distinctive smokiness, and probably one of the dishes most associated with Iraq. Tea follows practically everything, and for something sweet, there is kleicha: a traditional pastry, often filled with dates, that for me is tied to family and celebration. Around Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, families make enormous batches together and divide them up to share.

— What is something visitors often misunderstand about Iraqis?

— Probably just how friendly people are. Iraqis are extremely welcoming, and if you come from somewhere that keeps a bit more distance between strangers, that warmth can feel quite full-on at first. Someone might start chatting, shake your hand or ask about your life as though you had known each other for years. To an outsider, that can sometimes read as overstepping.

Here, though, it means the opposite. It is simply a way of making you feel welcome — we are much the same with each other, and there is a sense that anyone can become a friend rather quickly.