Hayyan Monawar is a Qatar-born, Palestinian visual artist. His work is notable for surrealist and photorealistic depictionswhich aspire to reveal his subject’s fullest dimensions. Representing a variety of scenes, Monawar’s visual articulation often revisits stories and subtracts the figure from its original course into new realms. His use of repetition aims to comprehend the complex proportions of a momentary event that leaves lasting impact on humans. These repeated elements are constructed from present reality, individual memories, and intergenerational trauma. Revealed in an unhurried manner, Monawar’s technique originates in segments using diptych, squares, and geometry. By following this approach, the repetitive fragments, cut to scale, are developed by applying layers that detach the central figure from the background. In each iteration, the scale is negotiated. The resulting work exists on its own, but continues in another production creating a series of reappearing symbols.

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Monawar graduated from the University of Damascus, with a degree in oil painting in 2004. Between 1999 and 2004 during his studies Monawar worked extensively on mixed media and collage paintings under the mentorship of artists Buthayna Ali and Safwan Dahoul whose teachings influenced areas of his  abstraction and scale experimentation. In 1999Monawar participated in workshops at the Adham Ismail Center for Fine Arts in Syria. Since his return to Doha in 2004, Monawar has been working in digital graphic arts and realist paintings until today. Local exhibitions that he participated in includes a solo show titled Hayyan Monawar: Wall (2018) at Katara Cultural Village Doha, and a group show We Will Not Leave, part of the The ninth Ajyal Film Festival, at Sikkat Wadi Msheireb Doha.