I have always wondered what it would be like to spend five minutes inside someone else’s head. Not just hear their thoughts, but actually see how everything connects. After speaking to a multidisciplinary artist Xina Yousfi, I suspect five minutes wouldn’t be nearly enough.

Her mind seems to operate by its own wonderfully peculiar rules. A childhood memory can become a painting, a random collection of objects can turn into an entire world, and something as simple as sunlight passing through glass can explain more about a person than a hundred questions. But behind all that colour and imagination lie some much bigger questions. Questions about identity, freedom, belonging and the complicated business of being yourself. Especially when home isn't quite so straightforward: Kuwait is where she grew up, Montreal is where she lives now, and Syria is the country she longs to reconnect with, but hasn't visited since 2018.

We spoke about all of it. And quite a few things I hadn’t expected.

— I saw some videos of you drawing as a child. Where did your love for art begin?

— You know how parents sign their children up for all sorts of activities: ballet, maths, choir, art, whatever? Well, looking at where I am now, art was clearly the one I clung to.

Growing up in Kuwait, there was this creative space where children could come and explore their imagination. Honestly, it felt like heaven to me. I could be the weirdest version of myself without worrying about what anyone thought. I begged my mum to sign me up for their summer camps, where I was surrounded by the coolest people. I remember idolising them and convincing myself that I wasn't just this awkward, nerdy 11-year-old. I was one of them.

I have always had a wild imagination, and art gave all those fantasies somewhere to exist outside my head. There is a quote I love: "For a child with a vivid imagination, the monster under the bed is as real as the bed itself." That is exactly how I felt. Everything I imagined seemed real to me, and creating was the closest I could get to stepping inside that world.

But as I grew older, things changed. I discovered the internet, became desperate for approval and slowly started moving away from art. I even remember deliberately breaking my square glasses so my parents would buy me new ones and I wouldn't look like the awkward kid anymore! Like so many teenagers, I just wanted to fit in.

At the same time, I was becoming more aware of the darker sides of the world: hypocrisy, trauma, history, misogyny. My imagination, which had once been such a joyful place, became filled with questions and anger. I was absorbing everything but had nowhere to put those feelings. Art had always been the fuel for my engine, and somewhere along the way, I had stopped feeding it.

Eventually, all that intensity brought me back to creating. I realised I could turn those feelings into something rather than simply carry them around. All the questions I had been asking about the world, about who I was and who I was expected to be, finally had somewhere to go.

And the funny thing is, now that I have fully embraced art, I feel like a child again. Like the person I was before I started worrying about fitting in or being embarrassed by my imagination. I have come full circle, really. Only now, I understand just how important that freedom is to me.

I actually wrote something the other day: "And I will unravel the unknown knots in my heart until I figure out how to pursue my natural curiosity and solve the problems of the world joyfully in a way where the world can graze my heart with a kiss."

I think that explains why I create.

— Your earlier works were much darker, while today your art is full of colour and playfulness. What changed?

— Back then, I actually wanted to disturb people. And strangely enough, that was the first time I felt truly free as an artist. I stopped worrying about what people thought and simply made what I wanted to make.

Looking at those early works now, I honestly find them beautiful. Someone else might think, "Wow, that is quite concerning", but I see them as the beginning of my creative freedom.

As I grew older, I began to understand myself better. Leaving the Middle East gave me some breathing space, my emotions gradually settled, and that change naturally found its way into my art. Every artwork is a study of myself, and I think you can see that evolution in the colours I use.

— Your parents seem to have played an important role in your story. Were they always supportive of your decision to pursue art?

— My parents are the most supportive people in the world. I think they saw how my eyes lit up when I told them this was what I wanted to do. And I think it is important to acknowledge how rare that kind of support can be for someone pursuing a creative career in the Middle East. There is still a lot of stigma around it: people often see art as a hobby rather than a proper career, and that attitude can be incredibly damaging to the region's creative ecosystem.

Neither of them works in the arts, but they are both incredibly driven people. They are fierce, they work hard, and they have taught my brother and me that whatever you choose to do in life, you have to care deeply about it. Dreaming isn't enough. You need that fire in your heart, the curiosity and the willingness to keep growing. You can't just sit idle with your life.

And I think one of the greatest gifts they have given me is making ambition feel like an expression of love rather than an obligation.

— Is there a particular childhood memory with your parents that has stayed with you?

— Yes. When I was younger, we used to visit Syria quite often, and there is one memory that has really stayed with me.

We would sometimes hear gunfire outside, but as a child, I had no idea what was happening. Whenever I asked my mum about it, she would reassure me that it was just practice. Then she would turn it into a game: "When the bullets go off, we dance. And when they stop, we freeze." A bit like musical statues.

It is heartbreaking to think about now, but that was her way of protecting me, turning something frightening into a game so I wouldn't realise just how dangerous things were outside.

We continued visiting Syria whenever we could, although as the situation worsened, those trips became increasingly difficult. Eventually, we would only go when we urgently needed to see someone or renew our passports. By 2016 and 2017, things had become particularly difficult, and my last visit was in 2018. I haven't been back since, but I really hope to return next year.

I think that is partly why I have always felt such a longing to connect with my own country. My parents know what it means to build a life in Syria, whereas I have never really had that experience. And I would absolutely love to contribute to the arts there one day. The Middle East has played such an important role in shaping art, culture, philosophy and literature. We have given so much to the world, and I have so many ambitions tied to rekindling that creative energy and freedom in the region.

— You were born and raised in Kuwait, but your family has Syrian roots. How does that background find its way into your work?

— I think the biggest influence my background has had on my work is the way I think about freedom of expression. Growing up in the Middle East, there were certain things you weren't supposed to talk about or show. I remember making art at school and having teachers tell me, "You can't do that. You can't show this." And every time someone told me I couldn't do something, it only made me want to do it more. Why not? Who decided these things were inappropriate?

I think there is also a certain pressure in the region to make art that is commercially viable or socially acceptable. And eventually, you can start censoring your own ideas without even realising it.

Moving abroad made me much more aware of that. I was suddenly surrounded by people exploring subjects that would have been considered taboo where I grew up, and it encouraged me to question some of the boundaries I had taken for granted.

So the connection isn't necessarily something you would recognise visually. It is more about the freedom I give myself to create. My work can be abstract, strange and sometimes completely absurd, but I don't want to feel I have to justify every image or idea. And hopefully, by allowing myself that freedom, I can encourage other artists to do the same.

— Let's talk about how your mind works when you are creating. Rhizomatic thinking is at the core of your practice, but it is quite an unusual concept. What does it actually mean to you, and how does it translate into an artwork?

— I think the easiest way to explain rhizomatic thinking is to compare it with its opposite: arborescent thinking.

Picture a tree. You have the leaves, the branches, the trunk and, eventually, the roots. Everything follows a structure, and you can trace it all back to an origin. For a long time, that is exactly how I tried to understand my own mind. I would constantly ask myself: Why do I feel this way? Where did this thought come from? Why has a particular memory stayed with me?

I have OCD, so I have always had this tendency to organise things obsessively. I have folders within folders on my laptop, my music is organised, everything has its place. And I tried to do the same with my thoughts and emotions. But the more I examined them, the more I realised my mind simply didn't work that way. It jumped from one thing to another, often without any obvious logic.

And that is where the rhizome comes in. Imagine a little pond with lily pads scattered across the surface. Whenever I see one, I always want to get closer and look underneath. There are all these stems moving through the water, connecting, separating and growing in different directions. Unlike a tree, there is no single trunk holding everything together. No obvious beginning or end. Just this wonderful network of connections.

When I discovered the concept, I realised I had spent years trying to organise my thoughts into a neat, logical structure, when actually my mind works through all these unexpected connections.

And that is exactly how I create. Sometimes I will write down the most random things on a piece of paper. I remember one list had bubbles, a toy, lightning, rain, clouds, plastic and a slide. Completely random! But I love seeing what happens when I bring them together. Some connections make perfect sense, while others are wonderfully strange. And I have learnt to enjoy that rather than trying to explain everything.

— Your paintings are full of colour, but I get the feeling your choices go beyond what simply looks good together. Is colour something you experience quite personally?

— Absolutely. I have always been drawn to different visual languages, cultures, places and aesthetics. I find beauty in so many things, and I think colour is one of the ways I express that.

A few months ago, I actually started thinking of myself as a glass prism. You know that Pink Floyd album cover, where light passes through a prism and comes out as a rainbow? That is exactly how I felt. As though I was taking in all these different experiences and expressing them in different colours. I didn't want to be confined to just one way of seeing or experiencing the world.

And I think that is why I have always felt such a connection to rainbows, or those little fragments of colour dancing across a room when sunlight hits something reflective. They make me feel strangely safe, almost as though I am recognising a part of myself.

That feeling naturally finds its way into my paintings. I don't assign a fixed emotion to each colour or choose combinations simply because they look good together. I am much more interested in how colours interact. What happens when two colours blend into each other, or interrupt one another? When something delicate sits next to something incredibly bold? To me, they are having a conversation.

— Let's see how everything you have told me about your creative approach comes together in your actual work. I would love to hear the stories behind a few of your paintings, starting with Spy in the Valley of Love. How did this one come about?

— I think this painting came from a feeling I have struggled with for quite a while: being able to understand love when it comes to other people, but not always knowing how to find my own place in it.

I have always been someone people can turn to with their feelings, and I find it quite natural to make space for their emotions and vulnerability. That is how I love: I learn you. But while I have given so much of myself to others, I have rarely felt that same intimacy in return. Sometimes it is as though I am watching love happen around me rather than being part of it.

That feeling found its way into a painting last December, when I was sitting on Kite Beach in Dubai with my watercolours. I was painting with seawater, which is one of my favourite things to do, and just letting my imagination wander. At some point, I drew an eye, and it made me think about my own position as an observer of love. The piece started as a watercolour, but I later turned it into an oil painting.

And that is where the title comes from. I felt like a spy in the valley of love, someone who could see and understand it so clearly, but couldn't quite find her own place in it.

— Another painting that caught my eye is Born of Sea and Sky. What is the story behind this one?

— I actually made this painting for my best friend's birthday, and I wanted it to reflect something very personal: the freedom to be yourself. To express that, I turned to two things I have always felt deeply connected to — the sea and the sky.

I grew up in Kuwait, so the sea has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. And I love the sky so much that I am planning to get a sun tattooed on both arms! What fascinates me is how these two enormous worlds appear separate when you look at the horizon, yet they are constantly interacting. Water evaporates, clouds form, rain falls and sunlight moves across the ocean. There is this beautiful exchange between them.

The painting is also inspired by Venus, and I wanted to bring that same sense of openness and possibility into something for my friend. It is really about her, and my wish for her to feel free to express herself and become whoever she wants to be.

The girl in the middle is actually her, at least in my head. She is blonde too! And she has the painting hanging above her bed now, so she falls asleep beneath it every night.

— Let's talk about My Soul Runs. What were you exploring through this painting?

— I made this painting at a time when I was thinking a lot about my relationship with God, religion and my own existence. I was born Muslim, and I still am, but I have always felt it was important to learn about other religions and philosophies rather than simply accept something without questioning it.

I have also spent a lot of time exploring Sufism, the mystical tradition within Islam, and I love the way it approaches spirituality through ideas of light, energy and love. At the time, I was particularly interested in how our spiritual beliefs shape the way we live here on Earth. We often think about religion in terms of the afterlife, but I believe it is also supposed to enrich the life we are living now.

And that is really what I wanted to explore in this painting: the point where my heaven above meets my earth.

If you look closely, you will notice a mosque and a path leading towards the light. But the interesting thing is that the path doesn't actually lead to the mosque. It leads beyond it, towards the light itself. That is because, throughout my life, Islam has been a compass guiding me towards God. The mosque represents that guidance, while the light represents the higher power I am trying to connect with. For someone else, that might mean God, the universe or energy. What matters to me is the connection itself.

— The last artwork I wanted to discuss is We Are Going to Return to Our Heaven. It is a powerful title. What is the story behind it?

— I made this painting during my first year at university, shortly after 7 October 2023. It was an incredibly difficult time. In Montreal, there were constant protests and marches in support of Palestine, including demonstrations at our universities. There was so much anger and tension, and even though we were on the other side of the world, everything happening in the Middle East felt painfully close.

I think those events made me reflect even more deeply on my connection to the Levant, particularly Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan. Those are my people. I grew up in Kuwait, but I have always felt especially close to people from those countries. We share so much culturally and historically, and seeing the suffering and destruction across the region has been heartbreaking.

Syria, of course, is particularly personal. I have seen what war has done to my country, how much of its history, architecture and culture has been destroyed. And what makes it even harder is that I have never really had the chance to experience Syria the way my parents did.

They have all these memories of travelling freely between countries, visiting friends and simply enjoying life. I want to know what that feels like. To be free under the Syrian sun, to drive from Syria to Lebanon and then spontaneously decide, "Let's go to Jordan!" It sounds so simple, but I crave that kind of freedom.

And that is what I wanted to capture in the painting. It depicts old Damascus, and I actually burned into the work and sewed the words "We are going to return to our heaven" into it. To me, it is a promise that one day we will be able to experience that freedom again. I haven't been back to Syria since 2018, but I really hope that will change next year.

— If you had to choose just one artwork to introduce someone to your practice, which would it be? Something that brings together everything we have discussed today.

— I think I would choose Aquatic Brain Matter. It is actually not on my website yet, and it is still unfinished, but it is enormous! When I stand in front of it, I feel like it could practically swallow me.

The painting started as an attempt to understand all the different parts of who I am and how they fit together. I have lived in the Middle East and the West, experienced different cultures and ways of thinking, and sometimes I feel like there isn't a single place where every part of me can exist fully.

What is interesting is that I love so many of the things that have shaped me, even when they make it difficult to express myself freely. There is this constant contradiction between wanting to break away from certain expectations and feeling deeply connected to the cultures and experiences they come from. And I wanted to explore that through the painting.

The title came from the way I imagined the creative process itself. I would be listening to music while painting, and it genuinely felt as though the music was pulling my brain matter out through my ears and scattering it across the canvas. I used to tell people, "My brain matter is coming out of my ears!" It sounds ridiculous, but that is exactly how it felt.

So I created a world within the painting where I could exist without any of those limitations. There is no gravity. Everything floats. I can bend backwards, move into strange positions and exist in whatever way feels natural. Nobody tells me how to behave or who to be. I don't have to constantly think about how different parts of myself fit into different environments.

— As you look towards the future, how do you want people to experience and understand your art?

— This summer, my professor came to see a painting I was working on, but what really caught his attention was the wall beside it, covered in my notes, sketches and diagrams. He looked at me and said, "Xina, that is the art. Your mind is the art. The way you think, the way you write and how elaborate your ideas are behind your artwork — this is what needs to be showcased."

And I think he is right. I want people to see not just the finished paintings, but the thoughts, questions and experiences behind them. I am still figuring out how to share more of that process while juggling university and painting, but it is something I really want to develop.

I am graduating next year, and I’m aiming to pursue a master’s and eventually a PhD. My ultimate ambition is to return to the Middle East and become a defining voice in the future of art and culture for Gen Z, particularly for women creatives. I don’t want to just paint. I want to speak, teach, challenge perspectives, and start cultural conversations. I have a lot to say, and every intention of making myself heard. I think you can probably already tell.

And I want to be open about it all, including the vulnerable parts. I would feel like such an imposter if I simply said, "Yeah, I just make pretty paintings." Because that isn’t what art is to me. It is about everything that makes us human: our experiences, contradictions, questions and the ways we make sense of the world. And that is what I hope people will see when they look at my work.