This National feature, written by Maan Jalal, ran around Miramar Al Nayyar's first solo exhibition in the UAE, Moving Through The Ether, staged at Tabari Artspace in DIFC and on view until 30 May 2024. The article traces how the Iraqi multidisciplinary artist arrived at the soft, pastel-toned canvases in the show, tracing her shift away from the darker, higher-contrast work she had made before.
The piece locates the series' origin in a 2022 visit to Bayda, a Neolithic site in Jordan, where Al Nayyar studied sandstone formations she describes as movements frozen in time. Working on large canvases measuring 190cm by 120cm, she used her own body to record physical gesture across the surface, painting intuitively and without conscious planning until a composition felt resolved. Though the results read as ethereal and light, the article ties their making to grief following the death of her father in February 2023 and to her emotional response to the war in Gaza.
Framed around her UAE solo debut, Moving Through The Ether marks a turning point in Al Nayyar's practice, moving from harder-edged earlier imagery toward a gentler, more abstract vocabulary built from repeated bodily motion. Al Nayyar continues to show with Tabari Artspace, appearing since alongside gallery artists Hashel Al Lamki and Lulwah Al Homoud at Art Week Riyadh.
