At Buro247 Middle East, we are committed to showcasing and celebrating the extraordinary talent in the Arab world. With our column, #BuroSpotlights, we bring you stories of pioneering artists, innovative designers, tech trailblazers, cinematic visionaries, sports stars, and more.
This week, #BuroSpotlights Qatari artist Zainab Alshibani.
It’s not every day you encounter an artist whose work makes you pause and reconsider how words, time, and identity are stitched together. Zainab AlShibani, the Doha-based graphic designer and lettering artist, has built her practice on precisely that—transforming the familiar into something dreamlike and strangely new. Her pieces aren’t just about form or function; they’re about expanding the possibilities of what visual language can hold.
At the heart of her practice is silkscreen printing, a medium she’s embraced with near-obsessive curiosity. Ink gets dragged across mesh, layers build up, mistakes leave their trace, and accidents become part of the story. Her prints often feel suspended between control and release, reflecting the very themes she explores.
She graduated from VCUarts Qatar in 2021, where she also received the AEB Excellence Award. But AlShibani’s real momentum began when she moved beyond the classroom and into the studio. In 2022, during her residency at ISCP in New York, she immersed herself in silkscreen printing and artbook making, discovering a medium that perfectly matched her appetite for layering, repetition, and process.
Beyond print, her lettering and design sensibilities have shaped branding projects for local businesses, including Studio7, YallaYoga, and the Arabic iteration of The Cutting Studio logo. Each project shows her ability to move seamlessly between experimental art and functional design, while keeping her own visual identity intact.
AlShibani’s world is one where graphic design bleeds into fine art, where logos and lettering spill into personal mythmaking. By pushing language beyond communication and into abstraction, she asks us to reconsider the systems we live by.
In the end, Zainab AlShibani’s art does what the best kind of work always does: it makes you feel like you’ve stepped into a dream.
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