Print Friends

Print Friends is a group exhibition of screen prints by fourteen artists and design studios, presented by Al Markhiya Gallery at the Fire Station in Doha. It runs from 22 September to 30 October 2026. The catalogue describes the participants as fourteen artists from across the Arab world. Each made a single limited-edition silkscreen poster, 50 by 70 cm, in response to one painting.

That painting is Arab Nation Street by the Qatari artist Yousef Ahmad, an oil on canvas ten metres long and two metres high. The catalogue says it evokes the mood of the Arab world in the 1950s and 1960s. Those were the years after Egypt's 23 July Revolution, when Arab nationalism gained ground across the region.

According to the catalogue, those ideas reached the Gulf and changed the look of streets in Qatar and its neighbours. Shops, clubs and institutions took names that spoke of Arab unity, shared identity and youth. Al-Orouba Bookshop and Youth Barber are two examples it gives. Port Said Grocery, named after the Egyptian port city, is cited as a name that survives today.

The brief was strict. Every artist worked only in screen printing and only in red, green and black. The catalogue lists each design in all three colours, in editions of three. Installation views show the posters pinned edge to edge in rows along white walls, mixing Arabic lettering, shop signs, packaging and drawn figures. The gallery presents printing here as a way to keep and reread a shared visual reference. Participants include Ananas Studio, Mobius Design Studio, Kinda Ghannoum, Naïma Ben Ayed and Zaid Sbeitan.