Zayn Qahtani

ZAYN QAHTANI

Zayn Qahtani (b.1997) is a Bahraini artist working in London. Working across drawing, painting and sculpture, Zayn's body of work is a diligent effort at archiving a personal, synesthetic archaeological practise. Works feel discovered rather than created, alluding to alife beyond the maker. This becomes apparent in Zayn's use of materiality: papers crafted from Bahraini date palm trees, bioplastics made from sugarcane, and pigments borne from plants, crystals, metals and earth all intermingle to form animistic objects of encrypted divination and illusory storytelling. Zayn has graduated with an MA in Sculpture at The Royal College of Art (UK). She has completed The Drawing Intensive at The Royal Drawing School (UK) and holds a BA Fashion Design from The Royal University for Women (BH).

Solo exhibitions include (Upcoming) The Whisperings, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK (2026); Salon, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, West Palm Beach, FL, US (2025); Diving the Darkness, Tube Culture Hall, Milan, Italy (2025); Angels In Purgatory, VITRINE, London, UK (2023).

Group exhibitions include Seeds Out of Line, Sixi Museum, Nanjing, China (2026); Abu Dhabi Art, Hunna Art, Dubai (2025); Art on a Postcard, Berntson Bhatacharjee, London, UK (2025); All About Eve, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK (2025); Medium Rare, Berntson Bhattacharjee, London, UK (2025); CONDO London, Union Pacific, London, UK (2025); Sixth Sense, Standpoint Gallery, London (2024); NEWNOW pt.2, Guts Gallery, London, UK (2024); Unannounced: The Other Voices of Silence, LAMPO Milano, Italy (2023); Hall of Mirrors, PLOPResidency, London, UK (2023); Contested Bodies, Leeds University Library Galleries, Leeds, UK (2023); When The Heart of A Pig Has Hardened, Dice It Small, KIRKI, Tinos, Greece (2023); Art Athina, Arusha Gallery, Athens, Greece (2023); Edinburgh Arts Festival, Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland (2023); Hawthorn & The Feast of Julian, Arusha Gallery, New York City, USA (2023); MENART Fair, Fondation Boghossian, Brussels, Belgium (2023); I Felt That (curated by Josephine May Bailey), The Tub, London, UK (2022); Serendipity, HUNNA x MIA Art Collection, Dubai, UAE (2022); Chorus, Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh, UK (2022); She Curates x Clover Mill, Wilder Gallery, London, UK (2021).

Highlights and Collections

Zayn Qahtani recently completed a residency with the Sixi Museum in Nanjing, China in 2025. Qahtani's work is held in private and public collections internationally including GRLPWR Collection by Marcelle Joseph, Bunker Artspace Museum, Florida, USA, Dalloul Art Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon, Soho House Art Collection, London & Oxfordshire, UK, The Ned Art Collection, Doha, Qatar.

The Whisperings

A doorway emerges as if hewn from weathered rock carved with intricate symbols harking back to ancient Sumerian ceremonies. Celestial forms swirl, drawing us towards its centre. It is a portal to what Bahraini artist Zayn Qahtani calls the ‘whispering world’ – an in-between space where our hopes, desires and prayers intermingle with the forces of the universe. Comprising sculptures and mixed-media works on paper, The Whisperings, Qahtani’s first solo exhibition at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, explores the ways in which we connect with and interpret the subliminal messages that surround us.

Qahtani is known for her innovative use of organic materials – papers crafted from Bahraini date palm trees, bioplastics made from sugarcane, pigments derived from plants, crystals, metals and soil – to create richly textural works that feel as if they have existed for centuries. In this exhibition, in particular, the works possess both an earthly and dream-like quality. They are tangible objects we can hold in our hands, and yet the images they present belong to the realm of the imagination.

Take, for instance, Even the Set Sun Rises, which depicts a figure emerging from a shimmering pool dotted with lily pads. She is a goddess-like presence, her hair intermingling with the water that surrounds her, large tear-drops spilling from her lids, while a flaming sun rises up behind a mountainous landscape, sending out luminescent beams of light that sparkle like fireflies on the surface of the water and in the shadowy sky. Like many of the works in the show, it connects processes of personal transformation and healing with the rhythms of the natural world.

We see this play out similarly in Growing Pains, The Moon Blood Plant and Why Do I Still Persevere? – works which Qahtani cites as the ‘origins’ of her whispering world, emerging from her earliest experiments with natural pigments and immersion in nature. Collectively, they depict the life cycle of anthropomorphic plants from seedling to death, each capturing the struggles and beauty of the different stages.

Manifesting, meanwhile, turns the practice of believing something into actuality into a devotional sculpture. There is a note of satire at play here, in the figure’s performatively distraught expression and praying hands, but the slow, handmade quality of each element along with the iridescent sparkle of crushed abalone shells – a signature of Qahtani’s work – pays tribute to the real comfort that such practices can bring.

Qahtani herself acknowledges the need for escapism and the feeling of a connection to something bigger, whether it be through the making of art or the belief in forces beyond our consciousness. Little, golden anime-like figures pop up throughout the show as her own guardians – sources of light – that came from a period of intense focus and isolation while she was living and working in China, and found solace in the familiarity of playing video games. These figures, like the wider visual language of the exhibition, arise from an attempt to create moments of connection within solitude – small, luminous presences within otherwise uncertain landscapes.

In The Whisperings, Qahtani asks us to sit in a space between knowing and believing. The works do not resolve into fixed meanings, but instead trace the desire to reach beyond ourselves – to find patterns, signs or signals that might answer back.

Viewing Room

Please provide your contact information to view this page.

Email address *

By submitting this form you will be added to our mailing list.

Enter

Back to homepage

* denotes required fields

We will process the personal data you have supplied in accordance with our privacy policy (available on request). You can unsubscribe or change your preferences at any time by clicking the link in our emails.

Zayn Qahtani: The Whisperings

ZAYN QAHTANI

Enquire

The Whisperings

Cookie preferences

Viewing Room

Please check your email