SceneNow published an interview with Nasser Almulhim, the Riyadh-based abstract painter, framing him within Saudi Arabia's abstract-expressionist scene. Now in his late thirties, Almulhim trained first in engineering before retraining in fine art, completing a degree in studio art at the University of West Florida in 2013 after a childhood spent in Al Malath, Riyadh, within a traditional tribal family.
The conversation traces how Almulhim folds geometric forms into paintings he ties to the human psyche, applying saturated colour deliberately to project positivity and a sense of healing. He describes a recurring device across his canvases, which he calls a gate of self-healing, as an invitation to look inward, and he resists offering fixed readings of the shapes, preferring that viewers interpret them for themselves. His exhibition history as recounted in the piece spans Art Dubai in 2023, the Noor Riyadh light festival in 2022, Hayy Jameel in Jeddah and Hafez Gallery in Jeddah and London, both in 2021, and the Saudi Art Council's Secrets of Alidades exhibition, also from 2021.
The piece also cites his 2022 solo show, Shadow Work, at Tabari Artspace in Dubai as among his notable outings, situating the interview at a moment when his engineering-trained, spiritually inflected abstraction was drawing wider regional attention beyond that earlier show.
