Visual artist Hussein Al Mohasen (Qatif, Saudi Arabia, 1971) has been active in the art world in the Gulf region since his first appearance in 1999 at the Al-Janadriya Festival in his native Saudi Arabia, where he has since then occupied a place alongside the pioneering Saudi artists. Al Mohasen’s work, characterized by a singular dialogue between the audience and the artist, conceives of images and visual environs as a series of surgical incisions, cutting open the theatre of horror and comedy, called the Middle East, into frozen frames. But these images are never static; Al Mohasen’s sharp-coloured stencilled images translate into continuous and extended narratives of experiences that not only describe the world but actively participate in it.

In his most recent body of work, the Saudi artist has moved away from abstract surfaces into symbolic and iconographic imageries, reflecting now the endless transitions of the contemporary between digital and real, political and social, private and public and the continuous transformation of the Gulf region, alternating liquid modernity with solid traditions and histories. Unlike other artists in the Middle East experimenting with graffiti, Al Mohasen understands the acute sense of irony with which pop art was riddled since the outset and has incorporated his humorous reflections into the altogether tragic narratives of Arab history. His work is both conceptual and liberating, drawing on art from the public space, but executed here with the fine precision of a cartographer.

Behind the obvious simplicity of his works, lurks a decades-long journey shaped by poetry from the Arab world and the complex intersections between modern spaces and personal freedoms. Al Mohasen’s work is visually global and overcomes regional paradigms, presenting the contemporary Arab experience after the fashion of the poetry and music that inspired him: In the end, we all speak the same language. Hussein Al Mohasen’s work has been exhibited all over the Middle East since 1999. His most recent solo and group exhibitions have been held in Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.