GHADAH ALKANDARI
Ghadah Alkandari is a Kuwaiti artist born in Delhi in 1969. In 1992 she received a BA in Mass Communications from the American University in Cairo. But it was a six-week painting course at the School of Visual Arts that “shaped my current painting style, which was also influenced early on by both classical painters: Cezanne, Matisse, Schiele, Modigliani and Klimt, and comic books: Mad Magazine, Archie and Asterix.
Her body of work ranges from large-scale, primarily figurative, acrylic paintings exploring the wide spectrum of human emotion and familial complexities, to smaller, intimate pen and ink drawings that focus on the banality of everyday life.
Recently, her work has segued into more abstract forms and shapes, a deconstruction of her usual subjects. Abandoning the familiar forms she was accustomed to has allowed her to immerse herself further into her works, by transporting her own movement and physical tics into her paintings.
Since 2009, Alkandari has used her blog, Pretty Green Bullet, as a platform to display her work on a regular basis.
The artist had numerous solo exhibitions in Kuwait and has participated in several group exhibitions locally and internationally, including the Arab Culture in Diaspora exhibition in Kuwait, Femmes Artistes Du Koweit at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris (2006), Approaches to Figurative Practices at the Third Line Gallery, Dubai (2007), and JAMM Contemporary Art Auction in Kuwait (2010).
