Every story starts small, usually with uncertainty rather than confidence. You are sitting in your living room, wondering where on earth you are headed, what you are actually meant to do, and whether any of it will ever amount to anything. That was certainly true for Mays AlMoosawi.

Loving art came easily enough. Building a life around it was another matter entirely. There were childhood afternoons spent in studios with her mum and aunt, an architecture diploma that never quite fit, a stretch of rather uninspiring office work, and no shortage of moments wondering whether she was even on the right path. And yet, somehow, she found her way.

Today, Mays is an Omani artist known across the region, with exhibitions everywhere from London and Paris to Dubai and beyond — and absolutely no plans to stop. This is her story. Sometimes hard. Sometimes uncertain. Sometimes brimming with freedom and passion. And always, without exception, full of the art she never quite expected to make. Enjoy.

— You come from a very artistic family. Could you tell me a bit about that background?

— Creativity was just part of everyday life growing up, really. My mum and my aunt were both painters, so I practically grew up perched in the corner of their studios, watching them work, tagging along to ceramics workshops. That was my first proper brush with art and that whole creative crowd.

Neither of them carried on painting professionally, though. At the time, building a career as a woman artist wasn't straightforward. They got married, had children, and pursuing art properly often meant travelling, being in the public eye, putting your career first — and that wasn't really encouraged.

My dad isn’t an artist as such, but he is an urban planner, so there was a different kind of creativity humming away on his side of the family too — he thinks in maps and structures, very geometric, very logical. So I suppose I grew up caught between those two worlds — the painterly and the architectural — and that is probably why I see things the way I do now.

— So when you decided to become an artist yourself, how did your parents react?

— My mum was very supportive. Since she never got the chance to pursue that path herself, she had always encouraged us to become artists. I still joke with her that maybe this was her plan all along.

My dad was supportive too, just in a more practical way. He tended to think pragmatically, which is why I studied architecture first before eventually realising that art was where I truly belonged. I completed my foundation year there, but I realised quite quickly it wasn't for me. I loved sketching, but everything else felt completely wrong. I remember thinking, "If I stay here, I am going to fade." So I applied to study illustration and animation instead, using the personal work I had been creating outside school. I got in, and it felt like a sign I was heading in the right direction.

— These sketches you were doing back then, and even before at school — what were they about?

— Like most teenagers in the early 2000s, I went through my emo and punk phase, so there were plenty of odd little characters, animals and random scribbles. Honestly, I spent most lessons drawing rather than paying attention. I wanted to study animation, so quite a few of those sketches were cartoon-like faces and characters I invented myself.

Even at university, female figures weren't really my focus. They only began appearing in my paintings around 2017, and not because I had consciously decided to make them my subject. They simply found their way into the work, and it was only later that I realised why I kept returning to them. In a way, I was figuring myself out through painting.

— You have been drawing female figures — now your signature style — for close on ten years. Looking back at those early paintings, what has changed the most?

— Quite a lot. At the start, there was a lot of fear in the work — you can just see it. What has gradually disappeared is that sense of uncertainty. I feel far more confident now, and I think that is the biggest shift.

The early work was also much closer to illustration, the paintings felt more like characters than fine art, if that makes sense. That changed once I started working at a gallery in Oman. Being surrounded by artists day in, day out made me realise this was the path I actually wanted. From there, the work started to evolve — and it still is, honestly. I hope it keeps evolving for years to come.

— At what point did you realise you wanted to become a full-time artist rather than work in the creative industries?

— There wasn't one dramatic moment, but there was one decision that changed everything. After leaving the gallery, I wanted to see what else was out there, so I started what was supposed to be a six-month traineeship at the National Museum. I thought it would give me the chance to explore different paths.

Then came the first day. It wasn't Night at the Museum — it was just an office job, and, if I am honest, a rather boring one. Because I had design skills, I quickly ended up doing graphic design, and that was the role they eventually offered me.

I was only 21 or 22, but I remember thinking, "No, this isn't for me. I want to be a full-time artist." Looking back, it was quite a bold decision, but I followed through. My dad had an empty apartment, so I moved in and turned it into a studio. I spent the next five years working as a full-time artist before going on to do my master's.

— I know that now you share this studio with your mum. Has she returned to making art?

— Not exactly. She is a fashion designer now and has recently started her own small business. There are actually three of us — my mum, my sister, who is also an artist, and me. We all share the same studio, but each of us has our own room. It has become a proper family creative space.

I would say we even influence one another unintentionally. For example, lately I have started incorporating thread into my paintings, and I am sure that came from my sister, as textiles are central to her practice. My mum's fabrics have found their way into my work too.

— Women are at the heart of so much of your work. Given the cultural context you come from, do people assume your work is making a social statement?

— People do sometimes assume that, yes. It is often paired with the question of whether I have faced negative reactions, because my work centres on female identity in a fairly conservative society. Honestly, not really. I think that is because I was never trying to be loud or provocative — so it genuinely never crossed my mind that people might read it that way.

It was only during my master's in London that I realised some people were interpreting the work a little differently. During a studio visit, someone introduced me as "the Arab female artist fighting for women's rights," and I remember thinking, that isn't how I see myself at all.

And though it doesn't happen often, I want to be clear — I am not trying to speak on behalf of everyone. I am simply an Arab woman expressing her own experience, in the same way a British artist would express hers. To me, that has always been the heart of the work. When a woman paints a woman, she isn't necessarily making a political or social statement — sometimes she is simply expressing herself. I am happy if people see themselves in the work and find comfort or recognition through it, but it was never intended to be a rebellion or a movement.

— If it was never about making a social statement, what was it about instead?

— I think it is just my own story, really. It goes back to my family. My parents weren't conservative, but my wider family was, and growing up I often felt that the women around me weren't really seen or heard. They didn't seem to have much of a voice.

As a teenager, I was constantly told to cover up, to hide my body. As soon as I started growing up, it became all about making myself less visible — almost as though being a woman was something that needed hiding. I didn't really feel comfortable in my own body until I was about 24.

Looking back, I think that experience naturally found its way into my paintings. So, in my work, I simply let women exist as they are.

— Most of your figures are nude. Why was it important for you to strip away the clothing?

— It goes back to my time at university. We did a lot of life drawing, and I was completely hooked. The human body is notoriously difficult to draw well, and there was something almost addictive about trying to master it. That was the first spark, although it took a while before it fully found its way into my own work.

If you look at my earlier paintings, the women are actually dressed. But at some point the clothes started taking over. It stopped feeling like I was painting a woman and started feeling as though I was painting an outfit with a woman inside it. The figures were edging closer to fashion illustration, with all the fabric and pattern doing the talking instead of her.

So I stripped everything back, quite literally. I didn't want anyone wondering where she was going, or what she had chosen to wear. I wanted the woman herself, without the clothes defining how she was seen.

— Colour clearly plays a big role in your work — some figures are blue, others green, red, pink. Is there any logic behind why a particular piece ends up in a particular colour?

— Not really a conscious one, no. I don't sit down and think, "This one needs to be blue." I paint first, and it is only afterwards that I realise a particular colour was doing something — that it seemed to reflect how I was feeling at the time.

So if a figure is blue, she is probably feeling a bit blue too — lying down, tired, quiet, somewhere inside her own head. But I wouldn't say it is a fixed system where each colour has a single meaning. There is some truth to it, just nothing I would call a rule.

— Is there a particular painting that felt especially vulnerable to make?

— Yes, I would say She Is Flower and Fire. It was the first painting I made after moving to London in 2022 for my master's. Funnily enough, it didn't feel vulnerable while I was making it. It was only afterwards, looking back at it, that I realised how much of myself had found its way into the work.

It wasn't just about moving to a new city. It was also my first opportunity in years to live alone again. Back in Oman, you stay with your family until you get married — that is simply how it works. But I think, whoever you are, there comes a point when you need to spend some time on your own, just to work out who you are outside everyone else's expectations.

We so rarely know ourselves beyond the roles we play for other people — someone's sister, someone's daughter, someone's friend. Living alone gave me the chance to sit with myself and really get to know who I was. To me, that is what freedom is. It isn't about going out or partying. People kept asking if I was out every night in London, and I would laugh. No, maybe once every two or three weeks. Freedom wasn't the nightlife — it was simply having the space to decide what I wanted to do.

If you put that painting next to the ones I made before moving, the difference is obvious. The woman feels freer, and looking back, I can clearly see how I was feeling at the time. That's probably why the painting feels vulnerable to me now.

Even the title says it all — She Is Flower and Fire. As women, we are often taught to be nice, sweet and accommodating. But moving to London made me realise there was another side of me too — the fire. That painting marked the beginning of a new phase in my work.

— Was there anything that surprised you about yourself, living alone for the first time?

— I would never really think about it this way before, but I think I discovered my voice was louder than I had given it credit for. I used to feel small, and I didn't always trust that my work mattered. Once I left, I started to see that it did — that I actually had something worth saying.

When I first started out, it was fairly simple in my head: I paint women, that is about it. But the longer I go on, the more layers I find underneath that. At the core, I am really speaking about the women in my own family, their stories, growing up alongside them — that is the heart of what drives the work.

— We all know people love leaving a comment on a painting. Has anyone ever said something about one of yours that has really stuck with you?

— The first story that comes to mind isn't remotely serious, but it is one of my favourites. A close friend came to my solo show in Dubai and planted herself next to one of the paintings, telling absolutely everyone who paused to look, "That is me. Mays and my cat, Tuna."

She said it to everyone — including my gallerist. And to this day she still brings it up: "Why did you sell that painting? It was mine, it even had my cat in it!"

I love moments like that, because they show just how easily people find themselves in the work. I would never sit down meaning to paint a friend, or turn someone I know into a portrait — at least not consciously. But when you spend enough time around people, little details lodge themselves in you without you noticing, and they turn up in the paintings anyway.

— Your solo exhibition in Dubai was a real milestone. What did that experience mean to you?

— It meant a huge amount, not least because it came right after I moved back from London, so showing my work in the Middle East felt especially significant. Most of my collectors are Arab women scattered across the region, from Jordan and Lebanon to Iraq and beyond, so in many ways it felt like coming full circle.

Given the nature of the work, we held the exhibition in a private residence rather than a conventional gallery. Emergeast organised the whole thing and transformed the house into an exhibition space for the day. It was beautifully done.

The best part, honestly, was finally meeting so many of my collectors in person. Normally I simply ship a painting off into the world and never get to meet the person who ends up living with it. This time, I could actually sit down and talk to them.

International shows in London or Paris are wonderful, don't get me wrong, but showing the work in my own region felt different. It really felt like bringing it home.

— Is there a painting you simply couldn't bring yourself to sell?

— A few older pieces, yes — especially the very first painting I ever made. People have asked to buy it, and I always say no. It isn’t really about sentimentality, oddly enough. I don't think artists have to sell every single piece they make, and I have always had one simple rule: if I wouldn't buy it myself, I can't expect someone else to.

The first painting is the exception, though, because it is where everything started. I don't even like it enough to hang it in my own home. Maybe one day I will make my peace with it.

That said, I don't usually get attached to paintings once they have left the studio. I don't cling to objects very easily. What I do get attached to is the moment a painting arrives somewhere new. I never quite relax after shipping one until I know it is safely arrived, the collector has seen it in person and told me they love it. I am a bit of a perfectionist. I want people to feel something close to what I felt when I was making it.

— Let’s take a closer look at some of your works. One of your recent sketches, She's Craving That Kind of Love, really stood out to me. What is the story behind it?

— I made it while I was living in London. I was sitting at home, sketching with the TV on, when it suddenly reminded me of the chocolate cake my friends and I used to eat back in Oman. We had a favourite place that made the best one, and I realised what I was actually craving wasn't dessert at all. I was homesick.

I did try turning it into a bigger painting at one point, but I don't think it will happen. Some pieces just belong small and intimate — blow them up and they lose whatever made them work in the first place.

Around the same time, the piece was selected for Moments for Lebanon, a charity exhibition organised with Hayaty Diaries to raise money for Lebanon. When it came to naming it, I settled on She's Craving That Kind of Love, because what I was really longing for was that feeling of comfort and belonging.

The response was wonderful. It was exhibited in Paris, and so many people told me they recognised that feeling. I think the title played a huge role. If you just see a woman eating cake, you think, "It's a woman eating cake." But once you read the title, you realise it is about something much deeper. Because the exhibition was dedicated to Lebanon, it clearly struck a chord. So many people were longing for the same thing — to be back where they felt they truly belonged.

— Let's talk about Finally, Space for Myself. What was happening in your life when you made that piece?

— That painting marked a proper turning point. I made it during my residency in Germany in 2023. Artists can end up repeating themselves until the work starts feeling a bit predictable, and I wanted to claw back that early sense of freedom — experimenting without fretting over the outcome.

Up to that point, most of my women had been indoors, tucked away in rooms and domestic spaces. This was one of the first paintings where she actually stepped outside. To me, it felt like watching her enter a new chapter — exploring the world rather than hiding from it.

It was also the first piece where I introduced thread. Painting is usually quite a quick process for me, but stitching forced me to slow down, pay closer attention and spend more time with the work. I finished the stitching back at the studio, working alongside my mum and sister, and somewhere in that process my mind wandered to my grandmother. She used to make all of my mum's clothes when she was growing up, and it brought back this image of generations of women sitting together, tea in hand, chatting while they worked.

That made me think about how much had changed. My mum's generation moved away from those traditions because they wanted careers, independence and lives that looked different from their mothers'. Those crafts quietly slipped into the background. But I think they are finding their way back now. More women are taking up sewing, crochet and similar crafts, simply for the pleasure of making something with their own hands. It is almost as though a whole generation skipped a tradition, and we are only just rediscovering it.

— And what about this piece?

— I had been following Thames carpets on Instagram for ages. Then, one day, they got in touch to say they had been following me too and fancied a collaboration. It felt like a proper full-circle moment.

The original piece was actually a digital work I made back in 2020, during the pandemic. I haven't worked digitally in years, so returning to something I had created five years earlier was quite a strange, but really interesting, experience.

They turned it into a handwoven rug at their workshop in Iran, where it was woven by one of the women artisans. I didn't even see the finished piece until I arrived in London for the exhibition, so it was every bit as much a surprise for me as it was for everyone else. I absolutely loved it — honestly, I wanted to smuggle it home in my suitcase.

What stayed with me most, though, was seeing a piece of my own work after so many years. The title still meant something to me, but I don't think I would choose the same one today. In a way, every piece becomes a record of who I was at that particular moment in my life.

— This art piece has scissors and hair, which don't crop up in your work all that often. What was the story there?

— Scissors have actually turned up a fair few times, though not every one of those makes it to a finished piece. The title was "What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid?" — or really, who would you be, if you weren't afraid. Quite a journal-like one for me. It wasn't about any one specific event so much as a feeling I was carrying around at the time.

There is something about cutting your hair that can feel like the first step towards becoming someone else. I remember being younger, cutting mine, and my sister saying, "I thought you'd act differently with the new hair, but you're exactly the same." Which is quite funny, really, because you do half-expect to feel transformed.

— Towards the end of 2025, you started experimenting with shell sculptures, some of which ended up exhibited. What drew you to that material?

— We have got a beach about an hour outside the city, and we are forever collecting shells there without really knowing why. At some point I looked around my art studio and realised I was surrounded by them with no real purpose, so I just started playing. It was completely instinctive, really.

I have always loved making things with my hands. Before the shell sculptures, I spent years working with ceramics, although I haven't managed much of that lately — there is neither the space nor a kiln in Oman. The shells became another way of satisfying that same creative itch, letting me experiment and see where they wanted to take me.

They eventually landed in a group show in Kuwait, with Hunna and Emergeast, curated by the Kuwaiti artist Alymamah Rashed. It was a lovely project to be part of, and the shells felt right for it because they were still tied to the female figure, just in a different form.

— Throughout this conversation, we have kept coming back to different stages of your life. If you could say something to your younger self, what would it be?

— I actually wrote this down. I would say: "I know you always tried to understand why you felt different. One day, you will realise you were never meant to fit in. You were meant to find your own voice."

My mum is from Iraq, my dad is from Oman, and I never felt as though I fitted neatly into one place. I had pink hair, I didn't really care what people thought, and at the time I didn't fully understand why I felt that way. Looking back now, I realise that sense of being different is exactly what brought me here. So I think the last thing I would say to my younger self is simply: thank you.