The 10 contemporary Arab artists you should know

The National's Maan Jalal picked ten contemporary Arab artists to watch in November 2022. Four of the ten are represented by Tabari Artspace, and they run consecutively through the selection. The publisher has since revised the headline; the live version is the one used here. Jalal opens with Nasser Almulhim, the Saudi painter and sculptor whose geometric and organic forms investigate the connections between spirituality and mental process. Maitha Abdalla follows, described through the large-scale paintings in which she combines painterly and drawing techniques to depict human-animal hybrid creatures drawn from Gulf folktales; the piece points to INT. The Body - Sunrise, her presentation at Cromwell Place in London. Alymamah Rashed is named next for a surrealist practice that sets quirky, floating forms against autobiographical portraiture and regional folklore, her solo When my Heart Danced Near Your Mirage then on view at Tabari Artspace in DIFC. Hashel Al Lamki closes the group, a painter and multidisciplinary artist whose landscapes and colour experiments track the relationship between people and the habitats the Gulf has built. Appearing together in a single national survey placed the four early in careers that have since moved towards institutional and biennial presentations. Two of the exhibitions Jalal cites were Tabari's own: When my Heart Danced Near Your Mirage and Maitha Abdalla, INT. The Body - Sunrise.