A Harmonious Dialogue with Art

A Bahraini contemporary artist born in Manama, Nabeela Alkhayer is known for her involvement for women’s causes. After attending the Slade School of Fine Art of London, she developed her artistic training by attending workshops in Paris and Geneva. For several years her art has been traveling the world as part of group exhibitions and during the last three years her work has been shown in London, Singapore, and Paris as part of the ArtBAB international weeks exhibitions. Her work can be found among the collections of Bahrain and Jordan’s national museums.

Since receiving the Silver Leaf Award in 2003, Nabeela has held numerous solo exhibitions in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, attracting a wide audience of viewers and collectors. Her artwork is characterized by its originality and its focus on women’s empowerment, which she conveys through the representation of women in various ethnicities, shapes, social backgrounds, and habits. Nabeela’s use of vibrant colors, contrasts, shades, and blending of tones and shapes is a distinguishing feature of her work. Her pieces often depict women in culturally relevant settings that evoke the traditions, norms, and folklores of the regions she portrays. Calligraphy is also a signifcant element in her art, adding a lyrical and nostalgic note to the pieces with discrete or bold text, full verses, or separated phrases.

Nature is another prominent aspect of her work. She captures nature’s beauty through refned lines and vivid colors, showcasing the magnifcence and mysticism of water in various moods and movements. Each piece of art emits a powerful energy, thanks to the contrasted textures, colors, materials, and variety of techniques used. Through her art, Nabeela communicates the depth, complexity, unpredictability, melody, harmony, and spirituality of life.

Nabeela’s work is not merely a visual representation of what she sees but a transmission of emotions that refect her thought process. Her art initiates a process of stimulation for the viewer’s vision, intertwined with the spiritual impact of the objects depicted. The non-visual aspect of the scene, similar to poetry, is also taken into account, resulting in a distinctive technique that Nabeela discovered in her artistic journey. 02

Her most recent exhibition, at Albareh Art Gallery, is an arena for the senses to compete. She notes, “I do not draw, but I color. Thus, I am as attracted to colors and interact with them more than anything else. Today, I no longer paint. The Creator has created everything, painted it and structured it with surfaces and blocks. Nature has colors that many people see alike, but I see their color differences as unique. I paint what I see and feel in my palms and what inspires my vision to become more beautiful in this way.

“Colors surround me from every aspect of nature. I feel the color inhabiting me like glass, which refects the sunlight that passes through it. I look at what the Creator and nature drew. I’m attracted to colors I try to repaint them. As I rebreak the lights on the colored surface, I see the sun shining on the water on the trees and the ground, and I fnd new colors when the sun’s rays blend with the raindrops, and my heart is dazzled with the colors of the spectrum.”

I have an eternal relationship with water, similar to the one of our beloved island (Bahrain) to the sea, which surrounds it and the springs of water fowing from its ground. Water is the secret of the universe and that of life. I do my art after I have studied it and rebuilt it to make it easy on the eyes and vision.

In this exhibition, you can get a feel of what I mean. Every work comes from my soul, where colours mix and overlap, a refection of the distinct artistic vision that is my journey.