beyond al nafs
Beyond al Nafs is a painting collection, exploring the tension between individuality and collective belonging through an islamic and indigenous lens. The title refers to the nafs in Islam — the ego or self — which in Sufi thought must be transcended to move closer to the Divine.
These works reflect on how individualism, rooted in Eurocentric ideals, disrupts our capacity for empathy, solidarity, and shared responsibility. In contrast, I draw from my amazigh heritage, indigenous philosophies, and Sufi teachings that emphasize interconnectedness and the communal journey of transformation. Through layered compositions in acrylics and oil pastels, I use organic forms and symbolic motifs to evoke both struggle and romanticisation, the vulnerability of facing one’s inner self and the strength found in community, memory, earth-human connection and spiritual trust.
barzakh
If interstellar was inspired by the Quran
The Barzakh in Islamic mythology is the veil which separates and connects spirit and matter. It’s a place for the souls to rest before their forever destiny, or to travel to at night, if their creator wants it. Past, present and future are one here. It’s the playground of dreams, visions, and spiritual encounters, where all moments exist in the eternal now. Where everything is perceived with pure consciousness, beyond the ego.
135 x 105 cm | acrylic and pastel on canvas | available
the touarag way
In a time where questions around community were very present in my artistic journey, I turned towards the Toureg for inspiration. Their way of seeing community as a fluid, unconditional matter, yet resilient and adaptive.
135 x 105 cm | acrylic and pastel on canvas | sold
sensuous everything
a painting honoring what was once together, spirituality and science, logic and emotion. a way of seeing where there is no disctinction between those things, intuitively, emotionally, femine.
135 x 105 cm | acrylic and pastel on canvas | available
nafs al lawwamah
Nafs al-lawwāmah, the self-reproaching soul, is inspired by the Quran, in which Allah swears by the souls that remain in a state of constant change. In this work, I draw on this stage of the nafs as a parallel to the state of society, a collective unrest.
acrylic and pastel on canvas | 105 x 100 cm | available
neglected amana
an imagined dialogue between earth and the skies, when they reunite again. How would the skies think about us, hearing what we did to earth?
I imagine turquoise to be the colour of this sisterhood, blue and green in one.
135 x 105 cm | acrylic and pastel on canvas | available
the infinite being
No wave travels alone, no wave exists eternally, telling the story about how we belong to Him and to Him we will Return.
When earth made room for the ocean to be, was is so it can remind us of our fragility and humbledness?
acrylic and pastel on canvas | 155 x 100 cm | available
barzakh II
Between this life and the next there is a field. I met you there. I will see you there. Here we are.
acrylic and pastel on canvas | 105 x 100 cm | available