Seven names of modern and contemporary artists from the Middle East to discover

Looking to the Middle East, we can find incredible works of art produced by Arab artists that will take your breath away. Leaving aside the most prominent in the Western visual arts framework, we take a look at seven painters who find their influences in their countries of origin.

From Saudi Arabia to Iran, Western Asia offers us a variety of painters with different backgrounds. With colourful abstract canvases, glass figures and mixed media, the following Arab artists are just a few of the many who have left their mark on the Arab world and beyond.

The son of Egypt's prime minister, Mahmoud Saïd (1897-1964), worked as a lawyer, prosecutor and judge, before becoming the chief justice counsellor of the Alexandria Mixed Court. Although his career in the judiciary won the approval of society, Saïd had other desires, to make art. In 1920, he left Egypt to study with painters in Florence and Paris, focusing solely on art in 1947.

Using Western techniques, the artist's oil paintings captured his native Egypt, depicting scenes of contemporary life with reference to the country's long history. Among Saïd's most polished subjects were sculptural veiled women filling water jars at the edge of ancient temples, turbaned men manoeuvring traditional hats, traditional dances and scenes of Islamic rituals.

Saliba Douaihy (1912-1994) left his native Lebanon for New York because although his abstract works had gained recognition in his home country, he found an energy in New York's explosive art scene that Lebanon lacked. In the city, modernist artists competed with a new mode of abstract expressionism, with artists such as Mark Rothko, Hans Hoffman and Ad Reinhardt resisting approaches to form and colour.

This movement gave an outlet for Douaihy's art, which after ten years in New York, his earlier academic style had all but disappeared, to be replaced by a new mode of minimal abstraction. In his canvases we see a representation of flat, monochromatic forms and blocks of vibrant colours cut with fine lines and sharp edges. This style characterised all his work until his death in 1994.
 

Shaker Hassan al-Saïd (1925-2004) was recognised as a pioneer of Iraqi modern art and was the founder of the Baghdad Modern Art Group which was established in 1951. Its members advocated art that was inspired by the country's heritage, or 'istilham al-turath'. Al-Saïd wrote a manifesto that has been described as 'the true birth of modern art in Iraq'. 

As a historian, he was rooted in the past as well as the present, and his international outlook led him to paint works that synthesised Arab culture and European modernism. During a short period in France, the artist became acquainted with the works of Braque, Picasso and Klee, with the flat planes of colour and bold contours of the post-Impressionist Cloissonist style also a visible influence.

Along with Shaker Hassan al-Saïd, Dia al-Azawwi (b. 1939) is considered one of Iraq's most influential modern artists, creating works that fuse contemporary techniques with references to ancient traditions. Al-Azawwi studied archaeology and grew up captivated by the artefacts of the Iraq Museum, which continued to have an influence when he studied at the Iraq Institute of Fine Arts in 1964.

In 1969, Al-Azawwi became a founding member of Iraq's New Vision Group, who were united not by style, but by a desire to change an art scene they felt had become rigid. Active during a period of political upheaval, their work also reflected the need to articulate a response to the changes in the Arab world.

Iranian artist Monir Farmanfarmaian (1922-2019) lived and worked in New York between 1945 and 1957, meeting artists such as Milton Avery, Willem de Kooning and Joan Mitchell. He also met Andy Warhol, who exchanged a selection of illustrations with Farmanfarmaian in exchange for a mirror ball, the shiny object that remained on the desk in Warhol's Madison Avenue home until his death in 1987.

In 1957, Farmanfarmaian returned to Iran, where he learned traditional art forms including Turkmen jewellery, inverted glass painting and cafe painting, a popular form of Iranian narrative art. In 1979, he began a 26-year exile in New York as the Islamic Revolution forced him to leave again. However, his country remained a fundamental inspiration for his practice.

Farmanfarmaian's mirror balls transpire the pop culture that the artist encountered in 1970s America, employing the reverse glass painting she had learned in Iran to project kaleidoscopic beams of coloured light. Although far removed from the New York disco scene, the traditions of Islamic design, with its geometric forms, continued to be an influence.

Helen Zughaib (b. 1959) was born in Beirut, Lebanon, living primarily in the Middle East and Europe before moving to the United States to study art at Syracuse University, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in the School of Visual and Performing Arts. Zughaib currently lives in Washington, DC and works full time as an artist.  Gouache and ink on board and canvas are his main painting techniques, but he has also worked with wood installations, shoes and fabrics, and mixed media.

As an Arab American, Zughaib feels that her experience in the Middle East allows her to approach her experiences in the United States in a unique way, being an observer of both Arab and American cultures. She believes that the arts are one of the most important ways to help shape and encourage dialogue and positive ideas about the Middle East.

Finally, we must highlight Reem Nazir, an international Saudi artist who remains true to her rich heritage and interprets it through unique paintings. She is a member of the women's painting at Saudia at Art Group. Her work is self-taught, but she took some classes with a president of the Chelsea Art Club in London. 

Her canvases are characterised by colourful still lifes, landscapes, people and jewellery paintings that show much of Saudi Arabia, without ignoring her knowledge of the world. He also illustrates with oil or acrylic paint, with a particular focus on colour and the weight of the mark introduces a fresh and energetic perspective to the painting.