Across the Arab world, visual storytellers are reshaping how identity, memory, and everyday life are seen and shared. Through works across comics, illustrations, digital arts, and designs, these artists transform personal experiences and stories into universally accessible visual narratives.
Here are five Arab illustrations you should know.
Nourie Flayhan
Nourie Flayhan is a Lebanese artist whose work is defined by colourful, surreal, and emotionally charged stories that are centred around women and stories from the Middle East. Her works, rendered in fluid lines, use vibrant Persian blue, sandy golds, and bright greens, drawing from regional visual culture and creating dreamlike, pattern-rich worlds. She collaborated with Gucci, creating illustrations for its Gucci Floral Fragrance, as well as with Adidas, creating a Ramadan capsule collection in 2023.
Aicha El Beloui
A trained architect, Aicha El Beloui is based in Casablanca and works as an illustrator, graphic designer, and creative director. Her work explores the untold urban experiences of ordinary residents through surreal, allegorical maps and illustrations that confront the prejudices about Casablanca, visualising the everyday narratives of its people. In 2017, she created a graphic mural landscape for the Iconic City: Casa exhibition at Dubai Design Week, where her drawings and images brought together a portrait of the Casablanca design scene.
Mouza Al Hamrani
Centring her work around her Khaleeji upbringing, Mouza Al Hamrani visual narratives are characterised by playful and humorous storytelling with kinetic and graphic elements bringing a contemporary edge. Exploring themes of contemporary life, cultural inheritance, and her personal experiences through a lens of humour and sarcasm, she juxtaposes serious subjects with vibrant visual imagery.
Lena Mehrej
One of the pioneers of Lebanon’s independent comic scene, she co-founded the Beirut-based collective Samandal, which publishes experimental, often politically charged comics in English, Arabic, and French. Blending a naive, childlike cartoon style with personal, intimate narratives, she weaves together stories centred around identity, gender, and sexuality. Turning personal experiences into social commentary, some of her works, including Kamen Sine (Another Year) and Mrabba w Labban (Yoghurt and Jam), went on to win international accolades. Her more recent works include She Spoke and She Said: Every Abbasid Woman Has Her Story, reimagining a 13th‑century anthology by centring its female characters.
Deena Mohamed
The Egyptian graphic designer, illustrator, and comic artist first made waves through her webcomic Qahera posted on Tumblr. The comic followed a Muslim Egyptian superheroine who confronts everyday sexism and stereotypes with wit and charm. Her style ranges from greyscale, vertically scrolling webcomics to more refined black-and-white and colour graphics. Her work, Shubeik Lubeik, is a graphic trilogy rooted in Cairene daily life. The trilogy follows three ordinary residents, Aziza, Nour, and Shokry, navigating a fantastical Cairo where wishes are sold at a local kiosk.
