Haneen Almoosawi

My practice begins with intuition—an instinctive need to translate what I feel but cannot always name. I’m drawn to quiet repetition, to forms that reappear without invitation: straight lines, wave patterns, subtle distortions. These marks have followed me across time, and only later did I begin to question their origin. Perhaps they echo my father’s work as an urban planner, or perhaps they mirror the curve of my own spine—shaped by scoliosis and years of learning to inhabit a body I struggled to accept.

As a teenager, I often felt disconnected from the physical world. My body felt unfamiliar, sometimes even distant, and I found solace in the internal—what can’t be seen, but is deeply felt. That sense of distance, and the quiet search to bridge it, remains central to my work.

Over time, reading and reflection helped me see my practice as a form of inquiry. Self-help texts, in particular, gave language to emotional patterns I had only been expressing visually. They helped me understand that my work is not about answers, but about noticing—the repetition of feeling, the weight of memory, the tension between control and surrender.

I work primarily with thread on paper. For me, this material holds contrast: it is delicate yet precise, tactile yet methodical. In a way, stitching feels like drawing with intention—slower, more deliberate. It allows me to explore the meeting point between digital aesthetics and handmade gesture, between what is measured and what is felt.

My practice is quiet but insistent. It is a way of listening to what recurs, and asking why.

Haneen studied at the Cambridge School of Visual and Performing Arts. Almoosawi is represented by Pristine Contemporary (India), where she participated in a group exhibition in New Delhi in 2023. In Muscat, she collaborates with Feel Art Gallery and Matti Sirvio Art Galleria. Her work has also been exhibited internationally, including in Finland and Japan.