The Middle Eastern art scene has quietly been building momentum for decades, shaped by a growing network of institutions, collectors and artists across the region that are as diverse as they are culturally rooted. That said, with the recent launch of Art Basel Qatar, the continued expansion of Art Dubai and the growing international attention around the AlUla Arts Festival, to name a few, it’s safe to say that this long-established foundation is entering a new phase of visibility on a global scale. What’s perhaps most exciting, how-
ever, is not just the scale of events, but the new generation of artists emerging alongside them – voices shaped by movement, nature and lived experience rather than noise and spectacle.
Among them is Miramar Al Nayyar, a 28-year-old Iraqi artist whose practice feels quietly assured beyond her years. Self-taught and based between Amman and Abu Dhabi, Al Nayyar works across paintings, installations and material experimentations that, rather than focusing on recognisable imagery, centre around the concept of movement.
As such, her paintings are often made up of flowing lines, layered marks and shifting forms that resemble symbols, writing or maps that don’t tell a story in a literal sense, but instead are formed gradually through re-
peated movements and layers. For Al Nayyar, this approach isinseparable from how she grew up. Moving between countries from a young age, she became familiar early on with transition and new experiences that quietly shaped the way she sees the world. “I’ve always lived in a state of suspension due to being away from home,” she explains. “I remember having many questions, like any curious child, living with a family, constantly hoping to return and settle down.”
Those early questions never really went away, however, so instead of trying to answer them directly, Al Nayyar gradually found herself turning to art as a way to process them. “This state fuelled my questioning even more, and later became a habit, pushing me to penetrate deeper until it turned into a question of the self and of life itself,” she shares. As such, creating work came from a very real internal need. “Having questions as the key foundation led me to contemplation and heightened emotions, therefore creating a need to express, in order to find some sort of balance. It was purely out of need.” Despite the recognisable visual language that
has developed in her work, Al Nayyar resists the idea of having a fixed style. What matters more to her is where the work comes from, rather than how it looks. “I don’t know if I can call it a ‘style’,” she says. “I know that it is nature working through me.”
The importance of movement, however, is always present and, in practical terms, this means working intuitively, allowing her hand to guide the process rather than starting with a fixed plan. What’s more, when asked about her use of symbol-like forms and layered surfaces, she traces them back to this same idea. “Whether it’s a hand moving according to that flow and producing those proto-scripts and symbols or the body dancing and producing all of those terrains and formations,” the starting point is always movement.
More recently, the desert has become a key point of reference in Al Nayyar’s practice – both as a physical landscape and as a mental state, it offers a sense of openness and clarity that she believes contrasts sharply with urban life. “The desert is a place that allows not only your mind to dream, but your body as well,” she says. “It remembers the dream, and this is where things start to unfold.” For Al Nayyar, the desert is not empty or silent – it is deeply communicative. “The depths begin speaking, without stuttering or becoming blocked.” That relationship was at the heart of her most recent exhibition, Hujra, presented at Tabari Art Space’s new space at Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue towards the end of 2025. Translating to “chamber” and sharing its linguistic root with hajar, meaning stone, it explored how feeling, memory and material can come together, examining how light can take on form and how surfaces can quietly hold traces of lived experience over time.
Structured as a dialogue between artist and curator, the show brought together Al Nayyar’s inner world with the physical landscape that inspired it. “At the time I was producing that body of work, I wanted to feel as if I were in the desert – dreaming, peaceful, and pure,” Al Nayyar recalls. “I worked nonstop to create that feeling for myself, because I had been away from that place for a long time.” What stayed with her most was the response from viewers. “I was very happy to see people resonating from the same place. It’s a work that comes from the heart to the heart.”
Alongside solo exhibitions in Dubai and Amman, Al Nayyar’s work has received significant recognition. Case in point? She is a recipient of the Prince Claus Seed Award, which supports emerging creatives engaging with social and cultural issues in their local contexts. “This award meant a lot to me,” she enthuses. “At that age I was very young and fighting for something I only believed in. Receiving it gave me a massive push and a sense of being seen – which is a very human thing we all need.” She has also taken part in the Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship, a pro- gramme supporting UAE-based artists through mentorship and development. For a largely self-taught artist, these experiences provided structure without restricting intuition – space to grow without losing her way of working.
Now, Al Nayyar is focused on what comes next, without rushing it, and is currently developing a new body of work that brings together the past several years of exploration. “It will be the culmination of the past three or four years of my journey – the harvest,” she teases. What she hopes for moving forward, however, is simple and telling: “More creative freedom and a courageous heart.” In a moment defined by visibility and growth, that may be exactly what makes her one to watch.
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