A Journal of Becoming

A Journal of Becoming is a solo exhibition by the Bahraini artist Mayasa Al Sowaidi at Al Riwaq Art Space in Manama, curated by Gaida Almogren. It runs from 13 October to 23 November 2026. The galleries hold large painted cut-out forms hung directly on the wall, tall suspended painted panels, paintings, a journal on a shelf, handwritten wall texts and a video.

The exhibition takes the private diary as its organising image. Each room reads as a group of pages pulled from different stages of a life, so that a person comes into view slowly rather than all at once. The Arabic title, «ما لم يُكتب بعد», means what has not yet been written. Writing is treated here as a way of meeting oneself.

Words run through the work. Irregular green forms are covered in sentences written by hand in English, and yellow forms carry stencilled phrases in English and Arabic. A wall text, written by hand in both languages, reads "There was always more than the page could hold". Elsewhere a wall-sized arrangement of coloured angular shards faces the visitor, and tall painted panels hang in a room that visitors walk through.

Al Sowaidi trained in mathematics at the University of Bahrain and taught herself to paint. Proportion and order guide much of her work, and her 2023 solo show The Golden Ratio at the Art Center in Manama was built on the Fibonacci sequence. The opening took place on 13 October at 7pm. Gaida Almogren leads a curator talk and walk on Saturday 24 October, from 7pm to 9pm.