Gallery Girl

Today I am joined by Amani Al-Thuwaini, a Kuwaiti artist and designer born in Ukraine. A mixed media artist, she believes that the cultural duality she inherited through her Kuwaiti Ukrainian roots greatly influenced her unique awareness of identity and culture, impelling her to explore this in her work. She has exhibited extensively throughout London and Kuwait and has also shown her work in Prague, Dubai, Brazil and Bolivia. 

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast, we are joined by Samar Hejazi. Samar’s artworks explore the possibilities of expanding the internalised boundaries of meaning-making, drawing inspiration from various craft traditions. She employs elements such as light, shadow, reflection and movement to create immersive multidimensional experiences through which she investigates the ever-shifting nature of perception in reality.

On today’s episode of the Gallery Girl podcast we are joined by Shereen Quttaineh, an Amman-based mixed media artist and art educator. Within her work Shereen explores contemporary textile art and printing, often using reclaimed fabrics and unusual fabrics to explore the possibilities the materials present.

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast I’m joined by Elina Sairanen and Wadha Al-Aqeedi, founders of Mathqaf, a platform that publishes, researches, curates, collaborates and champions art from West Asia and North Africa.

In this episode of the gallery girl podcast we are joined by Yasmina Hilal, a Lebanese fashion and mixed media photographer and experimental filmmaker. Her work is heavily concentrated on collaging with different mediums and the use of non-conventional objects.

In this episode we are joined by Laureen Topalian Bensaid, an artist based in Paris who studied at Ecole des Beaux Arts and then took on the traditional art of persian miniature painting with French Iranian master Abbas Moayeri. Much of her work is inspired by Indian and Iranian miniature paintings, bringing this traditional artform into the contemporary.

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast I’m joined by Rachel Dedman, a writer, curator and art historian based in London. Rachel is the Jameel Curator of Contemporary Art from the Middle East at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She is also the curator of the current exhibition of Material Power: Palestinian Embroidery at Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, which will soon be traveling to the Whitworth in Manchester. In addition to all this, she is co-curating the next edition of the State of Fashion Biennale in Arnhem in the Netherlands and has worked on many interesting projects that span the UK, Lebanon and Palestine. 

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast we are joined by Malak Mattar, a Palestinian artist from Gaza based between Palestine and London. She creates the most beautiful paintings and is also the author of Sitti’s Bird.

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast we are joined by Afraa Ahmed, a Yemeni artist currently based in Cairo. Throughout her art Afraa explores the constructed landscapes of Yemen. Her work harnesses her experience as an expatriate exploring notions of place, belonging, identity and exile. Her recent work focuses on the spectrum regarding where the meaning of home falls into, in between imagination and reality, in between memory and intention.

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast, we are joined by Muriel Ahmarani Jaouich, a Canadian artist of Armenian, Egyptian and Lebanese descent. Her gorgeous paintings illustrate genealogy, intergenerational trauma and historical violence. This sentence sounds like a juxtaposition, how can trauma and violence be beautiful? Yet Muriel’s delicate colour palette manages to bring a softness to a history that is complicated and painful.

Today my guest is Laila Tara H, a British-Iranian artist whose work is inspired by the history of Indo-Persian miniature painting, using natural pigments to bring a historic art form into the contemporary.

Today my guests are Anna Seaman, Jen Stelco and Claire Harris from Morrow Collective, NFT curators based in Dubai, who are bringing well established and experienced artists to the NFT space. Their debut exhibition Genesis is running online right now and marks the starting point for many of the featured artists into the world of crypto art.

Welcome to a special episode of the Gallery Girl podcast in partnership with Hunna, a contemporary art gallery representing women artists from the Arabian Peninsula. In this episode, my guest is Razan Al Sarraf, a multi-disciplinary artist based between Kuwait and New York. Her work covers the social, cultural and spiritual climate of the Arab world.

Welcome to a special episode of the Gallery Girl podcast in partnership with Hunna, a contemporary art gallery representing women artists from the Arabian Peninsula. In this episode, my guest is Aysha Almoayyed, a multi-disciplinary artist from Bahrain, who lives and works in Paris.

This episode is in partnership with Hunna, a Contemporary art gallery representing women artists from the Arabian Peninsula. In this episode, my guest is Aidha Badr, an artist from Brooklyn, NY who formally trained as a portrait painter. She is currently living and working between Cyprus and Istanbul and has recently begun exploring a more honest style of painting that she feels truly reflects her subjects' desires, memories, and allure, and we’re super excited to have her!

Today my guest is Alymamah Rashed, a Kuwaiti visual artist who investigates the discourse of her own body as a Muslima Cyborg, fluctuating between the east and the west. The Muslima Cyborg rests in a liminal spectacle that compartmentalizes the collective tangibility of the mind, the body, and the ornament.

Today my guest is Yasmine Nasser Diaz, a Yemeni-American multidisciplinary artist whose practice navigates overlapping tensions around religion, gender, and third-culture identity.

Today on the Gallery Girl podcast my guest is Maryam Yousif, a San Francisco based artist working in ceramics, painting and installation, whose work has been a means of processing diasporic shifts of cultural aesthetics

Today on the Gallery Girl podcast my guest is Cassandra Tavukciyan founder of Armenian Women Artists, an Instagram account documenting and presenting Armenian women artists, both in Armenia and in diaspora communities.

Today my guest is Reem Al Jeally, an architect, designer and visual artist based in Khartoum, whose work comments on social change, women’s issues in Sudan and her own life experiences.

On this episode of the Gallery Girl Podcast, I’m joined by Wejdan Reda, a Saudi contemporary art curator and the founder of Sahaba; a consultancy agency and research hub in Jeddah dedicated to serve the art community through providing specialised services to artists, galleries and institutions.

Today on the Gallery Girl podcast I am joined by Saria Sakka, a Lebanese art professional who seeks to preserve, promote and celebrate Lebanese and Levantine arts and crafts. She is the curator of an auction that has just gone live with Auc.Art called Beirut Never Dies and is also the founder of The Good Shop.

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast, we’re joined by Zahra Marwan, a Kuwaiti artist who grew up between two very different desserts: Kuwait and New Mexico.

In this episode of the  podcast my guest is Nada Elkalaawy, an Egyptian visual artist whose personal history is her primary work material dealing with loss, traces of memories and fiction.

Today my guest is Hana Shahnavaz, a British-Iranian painter inspired by Persian art, who makes paint from the earth, minerals plants and gold, celebrating the natural world.

In this episode of the podcast I am joined by Armenian artist Maral Matig, who is based in Montreal, Canada. Her paintings explore existentialism, duality and what it means to be a diasporan Armenian living outside the homeland. All of her subjects share traditional Middle Eastern features in some form or another and each tell their own story, often mirroring her own feelings and experiences.

In this episode we are joined by Tamara Al-Mashouk, a London-based artist and curator. Through multi-channel video, performance, and architectural installation, her work explores the epigenetics of place and the movement of people across societal and geographic borders with particular focus on the intersectional body. She engages with decolonial feminisms and explores resistance as a site of potential.

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast my guest is Bayan Dahdah, an artist based between Doha and Amman. Bayan is the creator of a gorgeous digital scrapbook as well as an artist’s stool called the sarj seat.

On this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast I am joined by Ghadah Alkandari, an artist living and working in Kuwait. Her work includes paintings in acrylics as well as intimate pen and ink drawings, and you may also know her from her blog Pretty Green Bullet.

Today my guest is Akadina Yadegar, who together with Nardin Sarkis co-founded Diaspora In Bloom, a group exhibition showcasing emerging contemporary Assyrian artists.

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast we speak to Varduhi Kirakosyan, a researcher in Armenian embroidery. She is also an assistant curator at HAYP Pop Up Gallery and IN SITU art agency.

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast we are joined by Tewa Barnosa, a Libyan Tamazight artivist based in Berlin. She is also the founder and curator of Waraq Art Foundation, a foundation that aims to support the Libyan art scene locally and in diaspora through encouraging socio-critical dialogue between artists and audiences.

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast we are joined by Moza Al Matrooshi, an artist based in Sharjah whose work consists of cooking, storytelling and summoning higher powers.

In this episode our guest is Nadine Nour El Din, an artist and cultural practitioner. She is also the founder of Nadine Editions, a series of art activity books focusing on artists from the MENA region for children and adults of all ages.

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast we are joined by Inti Bint and Shaima Al Tamimi, both Yemeni artists based in diaspora. We speak about their artwork, as well as their initiative Prints For Yemen, raising money for Yemen Aid with Al Yamaniah.

In this episode of the Gallery Girl Podcast we are joined by Sona Tatoyan, a first generation Syrian-Armenian-American storyteller, actor, producer and founder of The Hakawati Project. The Hakawati Project is an initiative that works with communities on the front-lines of suffering and change, providing innovative human transformation through creative labs in film.

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast we chat with Hind Joucka, founder of artmejo and Sama Shahrouri, editor of artmejournal. artmejo is an online platform based in Jordan, that champions art and culture from the Arab world.

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast, we speak to Suzy Sikorski, founder of Mid East Art, an online platform that acts as both an art historical archive and periodical featuring a comprehensive coverage of interviews and exhibition reviews of artists from the Middle East.

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast we speak to Lena Kassicieh, a Palestinian-American artist and cultural practitioner currently based in Dubai. Lena is also co-founder of Daftar Asfar, a travelling sketchbook built on the spirit of collaboration. We speak about Lena's background, her own art and what she's been up to in quarantine. 

In this episode I am joined by Sarah Hamed, Malak Khalil, Mana Merikhy and Laila Staubmann, who are all members of Young Shubbak, an initiative by London’s Middle East focused Shubbak Festival. Gallery Girl spoke to the Young Shubbak team about how the group came together, their recent projects and what they’re up to in quarantine.

In this episode of the podcast, we speak to Nikki Meftah and Dima Abdul Kader of Emergeast, the Middle East's first online gallery. We speak about how they founded their business, working with emerging artists and the future of the digital art world. 

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast we speak with Thana Faroq, a Yemeni documentary photographer and storyteller based in the Netherlands.

In this episode we are joined by Joanna Barakat, an artist, embroiderer and founder of The Tatreez Circle, a platform promoting and preserving the art of Palestinian embroidery. We discuss the tradition and symbolism of Palestinian embroidery, how she created the Tatreez Circle and incorporating embroidery into her paintings.

In this episode Gallery Girl speaks to Sara bin Safwan and Sarah Al Agroobi, curators of Banat Collective, an independent platform for showcasing and discussing womanhood & intersectionality in the Middle East and North Africa. Amongst many topics, we discuss how the platform was founded, the art scene in the UAE and their upcoming exhibition The Mystical Woman. 

In this episode we speak to Anna Kamay a Yerevan-based curator and writer. She is also the founder of Artsakh Fest and arts initiative Juggling Dinosaurs.  We discuss how she created the first ever international contemporary art festival in Stepanakert, the capital of the Nagorno Karabakh (also known as Artsakh), navigating the art world as a mother, and the post-corona art space.

In this episode of the Gallery Girl podcast we speak to Roisin Tapponi, founder of Habibi Collective, a platform that celebrates films made by women from, in and around the Middle East and North Africa. We talk about why she started Habibi Collective, creating a community through film and the move from the digital to an IRL space.

In this episode Gallery Girl speaks to Darah Ghanem, a Palestinian photographer, journalist, producer and multi-disciplinary artist. She is also the founder of Middle East Archive Project, a digital platform that crowd-sources family archives from the Middle East and North Africa.  We talk about the sentiment around family photographs, democratising archives and privilege surrounding photography.

Episode artwork credit: "My grandparents Ziza and Hani during their wedding ceremony in Cairo, summer of 1969" - Submitted by Lara Nour to Middle East Archive Project