Collection: Aysha Almoayyed

Aysha Almoayyed (b.1988) is a multidisciplinary artist from Bahrain who lives and works in France.

Almoayyed’s work is inherently experimental and encompassed drawing, photography and installation. Central to her work in the exploration hidden microcosms in the Middle East built to counter limitations in expression.

 

Aysha Almoayyed, by Latifa Alkhalifa

Almoayyed came to life on an island of broken dreams, where the starry-eyed optimism of the generation that preceded her were extinguished by the harsh realities of the region. These hushed realities are caught in the bristles of her brush; the silent echoes of pain, the keening from decades past, a society that has become docile and complacent in its own failings and one that makes truth invisible. Her artwork is dripped with defiance and reflects to her audience a glaring view of her world. They are a war cry that beckons for self-reflection and atonement from draconian societal norms. 

Almoayyed first display of her therianthropic figures were 2012 - 2013 series “Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures”. She captivated her audience with these initial portrayals of hybrid human-animal figures that stare back at the viewer with undeniable rebellion. A ram's head on top of a naked female torso is violently confrontational and an obvious response to the abrasive patriarchal structures and the heavy burden of being female in her environment. Each aspect of her work carries an avid anger and vexation, which not only represents her own experiences but is a testimony of the injustices she sees around her. In this series Almoayyed depicts sentiments that are usually relegated to whispers behind closed doors. Her hybrid creatures took it upon themselves to refuse subtlety and take arms against the male gaze. Her figures do not ask for permission to belong and neither does she. 

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Aysha Almoayyed studied Marketing at Bentley University, Waltham Massachusetts in 2010. She then went on to complete her MFA in Fine Arts at Goldsmiths University in 2015. 


She has taken part in numerous exhibitions in London, Bahrain and China. Notable exhibitions include, The 45th Annual Fine Arts Exhibition in Bahrain where she was the youngest participant to win the Al-Dana Prize in 2015, The Wells Art Contemporary and the Shubbak Festival in England, and The Inter Youth Exhibition "A Fictitious Present" at the CAA in Hangzhou China. 


She has also participated in the Paddle8 Middle Eastern February Contemporary Auction.

CV