I say this all the time: art without context is only 50% of the story. You can stand in front of a painting, feel something, decide what it means to you, love it, and post it on Instagram. Totally valid. But learn what to look for and who made it, and the same painting suddenly has a lot more to say.

Take the Mona Lisa. No context? A woman with a mysterious smile. With context? A painter obsessed with technique, five centuries of people arguing about who she really is, and a portrait that somehow became the most famous face on earth.

That is the idea behind Face to Know. We aren’t just here to introduce you to talented artists from the region. We are here to hand you the details that make their work click: how to read their artistic language, and what to spot that you would have walked right past.

Today’s face to know is Meshail Faisal, a Kuwaiti visual artist whose figures bend the rules of anatomy, stare back with oversized eyes, and carry stories and memories in every limb. Look closely. They are looking back.

Meshail Faisal was born in Kuwait, and if you only looked at her university degree, you would never guess where this story was going. She studied Earth Sciences and Environment at Kuwait University, developing a fascination with geological layers, erosion, time and transformation. Not exactly the usual background for someone whose paintings are full of giant eyes and gloriously distorted faces, right?

But art had been part of Meshail’s life long before geology came along. As a child, she would draw straight onto the walls of her family home (much to her father’s annoyance). And although she eventually chose a very different subject at university, her love of drawing never went away. She continued experimenting with ink and line drawings, which looked rather different from the colourful, rule-breaking characters we know today.

For a while, the two interests existed side by side. Then, in 2010, Meshail decided to give art a much bigger place in her life. She began painting more seriously, creating her first fully developed works and taking courses in fine art and sculpture. And somewhere along the way, those early experiments began turning into something distinctly her own.

Look at one of Meshail’s paintings, and chances are you will recognise the next one immediately. Those enormous eyes, distorted faces and rather unusual proportions are hard to miss. But was this distinctive style something she planned from the beginning? Not quite.

According to Meshail, it developed naturally. Certain faces, colours and shapes kept appearing in her work, and with every new painting, she found herself returning to them. Over time, what began as experimentation became her signature.

And while the style emerged almost instinctively, the distortions themselves are very much intentional. Meshail isn't particularly interested in getting human anatomy right. What matters more is whether a character can communicate an emotion. Sometimes, an oversized eye or a twisted face can express something that a perfectly realistic portrait simply can't.

Although Meshail puts her own emotions and intentions into each work, she doesn't expect everyone to see it the same way. In fact, she welcomes interpretations she hadn't even considered herself.

This 2015 artwork holds a special place in Meshail’s career. Not simply because it became a book cover, but because the collaboration helped bring her distinctive artistic style to a much wider audience. And to understand why the illustration looks the way it does, we need to know a little about the story behind it.

Written by Kuwaiti author Saud Alsanousi, Mama Hissa’s Mice follows three friends — Katkoot, Fahd and Sadiq — growing up in Kuwait’s Surra neighbourhood. Although their families come from different religious backgrounds, these differences mean little to them as children. But as they grow older, the world around them begins to change. Set against decades of political upheaval, including the Iran–Iraq War and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the novel explores how sectarian divisions gradually undermine friendships and trust.

Not exactly the story you might expect from looking at Meshail’s almost childlike illustration, is it?

Interestingly, that contrast was intentional. Alsanousi wanted the cover to appear lighter than the novel itself, with its symbolism becoming clear only after readers had finished the book. And rather than giving Meshail precise instructions, he encouraged her to interpret the story in her own way, including the things he had deliberately left unsaid. Their creative relationship continued with Hammam Al Dar (2017), for which Meshail designed the cover and created 11 illustrations for the book’s interior.

Two artists, two countries, 24 paintings. Another Dream was a joint exhibition featuring Kuwaiti artist Meshail Faisal alongside Qatar’s Nasser Al Attiyah. Each presented 12 paintings exploring social issues, with a shared idea: to reflect on the world around them and imagine how things might be different.

For Meshail, that meant turning her attention to Kuwaiti society and the everyday realities of women, men and children. Women's experiences were particularly important, especially the expectations placed on them and the pressure to conform to traditional roles. More broadly, she explored how social norms can restrict people's choices and freedom of expression.

And this is where her distinctive visual language takes on a deeper meaning. Those exaggerated eyes and unusually short limbs aren't simply stylistic choices. As Meshail explained at the time, she used these distortions to express the limitations placed on individuals and their ability to act freely.

Meshail still lives and works in Kuwait, painting and making sculpture. Her subjects haven’t strayed far from the questions she started with: what society expects of us, what our own experiences leave behind, and how complicated emotions really are.

Her work sits somewhere between reality and imagination, often appearing rather cheerful at first glance. And perhaps that is why you keep coming back to it (I certainly do). Just when you think you have figured it out, you notice something far more serious hiding beneath the surface.