Hisham Sharif

Hisham Sharif is a Bahraini painter. He paints in acrylic on canvas and panel, building his surfaces from layered washes and scraped textures. His subjects range from interiors with mirrors and figures to landscapes, seascapes and scenes of the cheetah and the gazelle drawn from Persian symbolism.

Sharif first trained in finance and holds a BSc in Banking and Finance from Bangor University, Wales (2015). His father is the Bahraini painter AbdulRahim Sharif. In 2022 the two showed together in Sharif & Sharif at the Arts Centre of the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities. Allusive Veil (2026), his first solo show in the UAE, includes The Mistake, Red Room with a Rothko and She Calls Me Pinocchio. Mirrors recur through these works, and his gallery links the work to his Persian ancestry.

His first solo exhibition, Frightening the Dark, was held at the Bahrain Arts Society in 2017. He has taken part in group shows at the Saatchi Gallery, London (2017) and AlRiwaq Gallery, Bahrain (2017 and 2023). He took second place in the Yusuf bin Ahmed Kanoo Art Prize in 2018. In 2024 he won the Al Dana Award at the 50th Bahrain Annual Fine Arts Exhibition. His work is in the collection of the Bahrain National Museum.