GHADAH ALKANDARI
Ghadah’s 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.
About the Artist
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 her 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.
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.
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).
Since 2009, Alkandari has used her blog, Pretty Green Bullet, as a platform to display her work on a regular basis.
She lives in Kuwait, and has three adult children who flit in and out of her home.
Talks
2009
Pecha Kucha Night #1, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait
2015
Nuqat Conference, Americani Hospital, Kuwait
2020
Majlis New York, Zoom
Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
Kuwait
2020, Outfit Shield, The Sultan Gallery
2018, Hurricane PM | My Life From October to October, Dar Al Funoon Gallery
2017, Until, Contemporary Art Platform
2014, Secretary, The Sultan Gallery
2013, Kiss & Cut, Gallery Tilal
2013, Kiss & Cut, Gallery Tilal
2012, PrettyGreenBullet | TheThirdExhibition, The Arabana Project
2011, PrettyGreenBullet | The Second Exhibition, Dar Al Funoon Gallery
2011, Stories of Eves, Gallery Tilal
2010, PrettyGreenBullet | The Exhibition, The Sultan Gallery
2009, The Yellow Tape Portraits, The Sultan Gallery
2008, Heart & the Gutting, The Sultan Gallery
2006, Dar Al Funoon Gallery
2001, Dar Al Funoon Gallery
1999, Ahmed Al-Adwany Gallery
1997, Boushahry Gallery
1994, Boushahry Gallery
Key Joint Exhibitions
2018, Cultural Narratives, Contemporary Art Platform, Kuwait
2018, Un Oeil Overt Sur Le Monde Arabe, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France
2013, Metropolitan, Urban Landscape Drawings, Strychnin Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2013, Metropolitan, Urban Landscape Drawings, Strychnin Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2012, Arab Culture in the Diaspora, Funoon Gallery, Kuwait
2010, JAMM Contemporary Art Auction, Kuwait
2008, Al-Arabi 50th Anniversary Exhibition, Biblioteca Alexandria, Egypt
2007, Approaches to Figurative Practices, The Third Line Gallery, Dubai, UAE
2007, Florence Biennale of Contemporary Art, Florence, Italy
2006, Femmes Artistes du Koweit, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France
2006, Unity in Diversity, Dar Al Funoon Gallery, Kuwait
2004, Cultural Re-expressions 101, with Tareq Alkandari, Kuwait
International Solo Exhibitions
2022
At the End of the Day , We are All Children, Gallery Misr, Cairo, Egypt
2014
The Closest I’ve Ever Come to A Scientific Experiment, Project Space, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar
2005
Europia Gallery, Paris, France
"JTR Ladies" | 2020 | Acrylic on Canvas | 90 x 150 cm | KD 2,200
"Knock, Kncok, it's a Murder of Eves, Come to Gift You and Apple" | 2024 | Acrylic on Canvas | 250 x 140cm | KD 4,200
"Classroom Under Water" | 2020 | Acrylic & Oil Pastels on Canvas | 150 x 240 cm | KD 4,200
"Girlfriends" | 2020 | Acrylic on Canvas | | 150 x 301 cm | KD 5,200 (SOLD)
"A Boggled Mind" | 2024 | Acrylic on Canvas 140 x 200cm | KD 3,100
"A Tiny Metropolis" | Acrylic on Canvas | 230 x 200 cm | KD 4,950 (SOLD)
"Fascinator } Red Head*" | 2020 | Acrylic on Canvas | 90 x 150 cm | KD 2,200
"before the great battle: on/off the marg/helwan train d5837" | 2023 | Acrylic on Canvas | 207 x 350cm | KD 4,200
"Fascinator } Red Head*" | Acrylic on Canvas | 90 x 150 cm | KD 2,250
"Sturm und Drang" | 2020 | Acrylic & Oil Pastels on Canvas | 150 x 240 cm | KD 3,600 (SOLD)
"Scuffle" | 2020 | Acrylic & Oil on Canvas | 101 x 152 cm | KD 2,850
"To The One Who Love My Abstracts, but Nothing Else" | Acrylic on Canvas | 100 x 140 cm | KD 1,950 (SOLD)
“The Garden of Eves” | Acrylic on Canvas | 140 x 100 cm | KD 2,250 (SOLD)
"The Hardness (And Softness) of Sex" | Acrylic on Canvas | 100 x 110 cm | KD 1,550
"Lemons" | Acrylic on Canvas | 110 x 100 cm | KD 1,850
"A Woman Listens" | Acrylic on Canvas | 120 x 70 cm | KD 2,150
"may" | 2023 | Acrylic on Canvas | 180 x 140cm | KD 2,800
"half-tales from a moving train" | 2023 | Acrylic on Canvas | 350 x 200cm | KD 4,200
"The Other G” | Acrylic on Canvas | 234 x 150 cm | KD 5,000
"It’s You, Not Me" | 120 x 70 cm | Acrylic on Canvas | KD 1,850
"Bird's Nest" | Acrylic on Canvas | 76 x 120 cm | KD 1,250 (SOLD)
"The Way to Brocadia" | Acrylic on Canvas | 150 x 250 cm | KD 3,500
"Fatima’s Needles" | 100 x 149 cm | Acrylic on Canvas | KD 1,950
Eves | Acrylic on Canvas | 30 x 30 cm (each) | KD 475 each | Inquire about available pieces
"on the metro" | 2023 | Acrylic on Canvas | 270 x 205cm | KD 2,700 (SOLD)
"Puritan Eve" | Acrylic on Canvas | 120 x 151 cm | KD 1,200
"A Mother and her Daughter" | Acrylic on Canvas | 101 x 151 cm | KD 1,950 (SOLD)
"Coin Toss" | Oil on Canvas | 152 x 102 cm | KD 1,850 (SOLD)
"The Dissection of a Lily" | 2020 | Acrylic and Oil Pastel on Canvas | 54 x 140 cm | KD 1,200
"The Visitors" | Acrylic on Canvas | 149 x 100 cm | KD 2,000 (SOLD)
"An Embrace" | Acrylic on Canvas | 100 x 159 cm | KD 2,250 (SOLD)
"Bed" | Acrylic on Canvas | 240 x 170 cm | KD 4,000
"The Nightmare" | Acrylic on Canvas | 270 x 200 cm | KD 4,950
"Ultrasound" | Acrylic on Canvas | 80 x 100 cm | KD 1,600
"Fraternal Twin" | Acrylic on Canvas | 156 x 210 cm | KD 3,500
"Identical Twin" | Acrylic on Canvas | 156 x 210 cm | KD 3,500
"Mind Factory" | Acrylic and Oil Pastels on Canvas | 140 X 100 cm | KD 1,950 (SOLD)
"Lady With Top Bun" | Acrylic and Oil Pastels on Canvas | 152 X 101 cm | KD 1,350 (SOLD)
"Eve in Her Swimcap" | Acrylic and Oil Pastels on Canvas | 152 X 101cm | KD 1,350 (SOLD)
" Fascinator } Pool Balls" | Acrylic on Canvas | 90 X 150cm | KD 2,200
"Birds on Their Way Home" | 2017 | Acrylic on Canvas | 122 X 91 cm | KD 1, 150
"The Box" | Acrylic on Canvas | 90 x 152 cm | KD 2,150
"We are Liquid, We are Fluid" | Acrylic on Canvas | 140 x 250 cm | KD 3,900 (SOLD)
"Legionnaire" | 2020 | Acrylic and Oil Pastels on Canvas | 120 x 76cm | KD 1,850
"Heya" | 2023 | Acrylic on Canvas | 250 x 142 cm | KD 3,950 (SOLD)
"Breast Envy" | 2023 | Acrylic on Canvas | 250 x 142 cm | KD 4,200 (SOLD)
"Everything Water" | 2023 | Acrylic on Canvas | 140 x 300 cm | KD 4,800 (SOLD)
"Around the Pond" | 2023 | Acrylic on Canvas | 140 x 300cm | KD 4,800 (SOLD)
"Husain Bin Aggoul" | 2023 | Acrylic on Canvas | 100 x 140cm | KD 2,400 (SOLD)
"madam, I am adam" | 2023 | Acrylic on Canvas | 70 x 100cm | KD 1,350
"Bust of Eve at a Museum" | 2023 | Acrylic on Canvas | 70 x 100cm | KD 950
"Maysaa's Beetle Red" | 2023 | Acrylic on Canvas | 36 x 25cm | KD 300
"Maysaa's Beetle Pink" | 2023 | Acrylic on Canvas | 36 x 25cm | KD 250
"Maysaa's Beetle white" | 2023 | Acrylic on Canvas | 36 x 25cm | KD 300
"Sitting Ducks" | 2024 | Acrylic on Canvas | 60 x 90cm | KD 1,050