Saman Zahawi

Saman Zahawi is an Iraqi-Canadian artist and architect, born in Baghdad in 1967. He draws in black ink on white paper and also makes mixed-media objects, canvas prints and marble sculptures. His drawings build dense fields of dots, lines and Arabic letterforms, set out in stark black and white.

Zahawi works with Arabic calligraphy and has devised a font of his own that joins traditional technique with a modern look. His themes are paired opposites: life and death, the simple and the complex, tradition and innovation. His practice in this vein began with The Iceberg, a work concerned with what stays hidden. He draws without preliminary sketches, so each line keeps the movement of the hand.

In 2023 Zahawi showed a work at the third edition of the Khatt Festival at Khawla Art Gallery in Dubai Design District. He exhibited at Orient Gallery in Amman in 2022 and at Khawla Art and Culture in Abu Dhabi in 2024. That year he also took part in Salone del Mobile in Milan with CITCO. In Dubai Design District he has led a workshop titled "If I Could Do It, You Surely Can!". In October 2026 Orient Gallery opened "Silent Art", his solo exhibition of ink drawings and mixed-media works.