Artist to Watch: Monira Al Qadiri Explores Humanity’s Complicated Relationship with Oil
This fall, the Kuwaiti talent will make her debut at Perrotin and unveil her first public art project in North America
Growing up in Kuwait, Monira Al Qadiri experienced firsthand the effects of oil, witnessing the deliberate burning of wells during the Gulf War at the age of just seven. “The air was black, the ground was black, everything was black,” she recalls. “As a child, there’s no sense of right or wrong, and I thought it was fascinating.”
As she got older, Al Qadiri was struck by how the rhetoric suggested oil was the problem, not the humans fighting over it. Exploring this misconception in her work, she sheds light on man’s obsession with extraction, imagining a time when the precious resource runs out and a new industry emerges.
For her debut at Perrotin in New York this fall, Al Qadiri presents works such as
Spectrum (2025), 3D-printed plastic oil drill bits based on her 2016 series investigating pearl farming in the Gulf region, which was dominant before the discovery of the powerful resource. Realizing that pearls and oil have similar beautiful color schemes, Al Qadiri painted the drill bits in iridescent rainbow hues. The beauty, however, belies the reality of the material. “Oil tricks us into believing we are becoming wealthy, but it is also destroying us,” she says.
Another new work in the show, an alien-like sculpture called Reptilian (2025), considers a future where we grapple with this destruction. A nod to man’s search for other planets that could sustain human life—and offer more resources to extract—the piece is inspired by Arabia Terra, a region of Mars named for its resemblance to the Arabian Desert. “It’s strange and beautiful that there is an Arabia on Mars,” Al Qadiri says. “But it’s a ludicrous fantasy that we are someday going to colonize another planet.”
In addition to the Perrotin show, Al Qadiri unveils her first public art project in North America this fall. Inspired by Khepri, the ancient Egyptian sun god, the sculpture examines how humans used to revere other species, even insects. Taking the form of a human bust with a scarab face, the artwork—co-commissioned by Public Art Fund and Lassonde Art Trail in Toronto—will be on view in the Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park through August 2026 before heading to Toronto.
A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2025 Fall Issue in the section “Artists to Watch.” Subscribe to the magazine.