DHAHRAN: There’s a new exhibition in town. Some of the artists you know, and some you don’t — which is exactly the point.
The works of more than four dozen pioneering women from across the Arab world are on display — some for the first time ever — in “Horizon in Their Hands: Women Artists from the Arab World (’60s–’80s),” which opened Sept. 18 at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) in Dhahran and runs until Feb. 14. The show contains 70 works by artists from 13 countries.
Fatima Hassan Assiri, ‘Untitled.’ (Courtesy of Jameelah Assiri)
“The idea behind the title was to give back agency to a generation of women who have been overlooked,” the show’s curator, Rémi Homs, tells Arab News. “We also wanted to see this relationship between arts and craft as a horizon for further research. And we wanted to have this idea of hands — something handmade.”
The exhibition is a collaboration between Ithra and Barjeel, a UAE-based foundation established by Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi in 2010. Of the 50 artists featured, four are from Saudi Arabia: Mona Al-Munajjed, Fatima Hassan Assiri, Mounirah Mosly, and Safeya Binzagr, regarded as the mother of Saudi modern art. Both Al-Munajjed and Binzagr are the subjects of an “In Focus” section of the show, along with the late Tunisian artist Safia Farhat, and the Wissa Wassef Art Center in Egypt, which preserves hand-weaving traditions.
Mona Al-Munajjed, ‘Dreams Come True in Saudi,’ 2022 - Batik on silk. (Courtesy of the artist)
Al-Munajjed’s works, including “Traditional Saudi Door” and “Minaret of Mosque” — both from the mid-Eighties — weave together personal memory and collective history, capturing intimate domestic scenes and broader social narratives of Jeddah. Using the fiery batik dyeing technique, she blends vibrant colors and subtle textures, creating visual stories that feel both deeply personal and historically resonant.
Assiri, the mother of renowned artists Ahmed and Jamila Mater, showcases an untitled acrylic-on-wood panel piece — a complex composition that intertwines colors and motifs, employing the feminist-centric traditional Saudi art form, Al-Qatt Al-Asiri — which women historically used to decorate their homes with specific shapes, colors, and markings, and is listed on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Nadia Mohamed, ‘Palms and Fields,’ 2021 - Tapestry. (Courtesy of Barjeel Art Foundation Collection, Sharjah)
“The Young Woman,” by Mosly, exemplifies the late artist’s ability to blend portraiture with broader social and cultural themes, while Binzagr’s lithography etchings, intimate and bold, captured the spirit of Saudi life, blending figurative storytelling with a modernist sensibility that continues to resonate. Her 1980 work “Desert Ship,” depicting camels in front of a tent, is particularly striking.
The show is split into thematic sections, including “Depicting a Rapid Modernization,” “Alternative Pathways: Self-Taught Artists,” “Revisiting Islamic Art Legacies,” “New Media Experimentation,” “Reclaiming Local Craft Practices,” and “Al-Qatt Al-Asiri.”
Many of the works carry partial or unknown histories. Homs cites a brass piece by Egyptian artist Atyat El-Ahwal (1989), initially listed only by name and date.
“We basically had no information about her,” he says. “We included her work because we wanted to focus not just on the more well-known names,” he said. Further research — and input from visitors and experts — helped uncover her full name, dates of birth and death (1919–2012), and even a video likely recorded in the 1970s found on YouTube, all allowing her work to be contextualized in a broader history.
Everyday materials appear in surprising ways — transformed into abstract compositions, for example — and embroidery is reimagined as narrative painting. Henna recurs across many works; Homs highlighted Emirati pioneer Najat Makki, saying: “Henna was an accessible part of everyday life.”
He praises the artists’ innovative and creative use of available materials. “Something that you cannot see in history books from the West, but it’s something very important and, in my opinion, very groundbreaking,” he says.
And Homs is hopeful that the exhibition will lead to further revelations of artworks by women in the Arab world.
“Yes, we are seeing 70 different works by 50 different artists—22 of whom are still alive,” he says. “But it’s the tip of the iceberg. I’d say that we are seeing maybe the first 5 percent of artists we need to discover.”
