Emaho: Can you tell us about your first introduction to art and the moment you realized it wasn’t just an interest, but a lifelong passion?
Alymamah: My earliest introduction to art happened before I understood what art was. I was a child drawing beside my parents, making marks that felt like extensions of my breath. But the realization that it was a lifelong path came slowly, like a tide returning again and again. Art became the only place where my inner worlds, memories, and imagined spirits could live without boundaries.
Emaho: How would you describe the core themes or emotional threads that consistently run through your work?
Alymamah: My work always returns to the body, the physical, the spiritual, the remembered, and the mythic. I explore personal mythologies, protection, tenderness, longing, and metamorphosis. My paintings often become portals between who I am, who I have been, and the selves I am still becoming.
Emaho: Your materials such as sand, seashells, and blooms are deeply symbolic. What draws you to these elements, and what do they represent in your artistic language?
Alymamah: These materials are living archives. Seashells, sand, and blooms hold memory, breath, and history within them. They mirror the cyclical nature of the spirit, expanding, protecting, and returning. When these elements enter my work, they become metaphors for rebirth, intimacy, and the landscapes that form us.
Emaho: When transforming the heritage Lady Dior bag, how did you turn it into a soulful tapestry filled with natural textures and mystical eyes? What was your artistic process like?
Alymamah: I approached the Lady Dior bag as if I were touching a living body. I wanted it to breathe with the same intensity as my paintings. The mystical eyes and natural textures emerged from my ongoing exploration of the humane angel, the spirit that observes and protects. I painted intuitively, allowing the bag to become a portal in its own right.
Emaho: How does your heritage and personal history shape the stories, symbols, and bodies that appear in your art?
Alymamah: My heritage forms my internal cosmology. Growing up in Kuwait, surrounded by sea, desert, and generations of women who created protection through gesture and story, deeply shaped my visual language. The bodies and spirits in my paintings emerge from memories of place, textures of land, and oral histories that live within me.
Emaho: From your perspective, how would you describe the current art scene in Kuwait? What strengths and challenges define it today?
Alymamah: The art scene in Kuwait is intimate, bold, and rapidly evolving. There is a deep sense of community and a strong commitment to experimentation. Our greatest challenge remains infrastructure, yet our resilience and sense of urgency continue to shape a powerful and self driven landscape.
Emaho: As an artist working in Kuwait, what obstacles have you encountered, and how have you found ways to grow despite them?
Alymamah: The lack of formal structures and long term support can be challenging, but it taught me to build my own rhythm and community. I grew by trusting my voice, seeking collaboration, and committing fully to my practice. Every obstacle ultimately expanded my path.
Emaho: You were selected for Dior’s tenth Lady Dior Art Project. How did that collaboration happen, and what impact did it have on your journey?
Alymamah: The collaboration unfolded beautifully and naturally. Being invited into such a historic lineage was transformative. It challenged me to translate my visual language into an object already full of meaning, connecting my work to a new global audience.
Emaho: Reimagining such an iconic fashion item is no small task. How did you approach balancing Dior’s legacy with your own voice and vision?
Alymamah: I approached it with reverence and with confidence in my own language. I was not there to imitate Dior’s history, but to converse with it. My visions, the bodies, the spirits, and the eyes, merged seamlessly with the bag’s legacy, creating a meeting point between two worlds.
Emaho: You also partnered with Piaget for Art Dubai. What was it like bringing your artistic practice into the world of luxury brands?
Alymamah: Working with Piaget felt like a natural dialogue between my spiritual language and their world of precision and craft. Inspired by the Sixtie trapeze jewellery watch, I transformed its geometry into a golden sun and allowed my blue figures to move around it like jewels in orbit. The collaboration became a way to merge my mythologies with their heritage, expanding my practice into a new material universe while keeping the emotional core completely intact.
Emaho: How do collaborations with global brands help expand the visibility, reach, or interpretation of your work?
Alymamah: These collaborations introduce my work to audiences outside traditional art spaces. They create new dialogues that connect fashion to painting, craft to mythology, and intimacy to global presence. They allow my visual language to expand without losing its grounding.
Emaho: When working on commercial or branded projects, how do you stay true to your artistic integrity and personal narrative? What do you love the most about such collaborations?
Alymamah: I stay rooted by returning to the spirit of my practice, the gestures, stories, and mythologies that guide me. I never create something that is not emotionally anchored in my world. What I love most is the exchange, the merging of universes, and the transformation of an object into a vessel for spirit and story.
