Haneen Almoosawi (b. 1992, Muscat) shares the cornerstones of her practice with baynspace. Utilising a minimalist visual vocabulary rooted in abstraction Almoosawi creates quiet pieces primarily with threads. The Oman-based artist recently debuted in India with Pristine Contemporary.

Could you tell us more about your path of becoming an artist? 

Haneen Almoosawi: From a young age, I was surrounded by two very different kinds of creatives. I traveled with my mother, visited galleries, and grew up watching her and my aunts create with a passion that was impossible to ignore. At the same time, I inherited something from my father, a civil engineer, a pull toward structure and problem solving. Rather than choosing between the two, I followed both, studying Product Design at Ravensbourne in London and discovering how much I loved the process of making and working through ideas.

That tension never went away, and I think it’s what drives my practice now. My work is abstract, built around geometric shapes and lines, produced as digital outlines that I then bring into the physical by adding thread to give each piece depth and texture.

Much of your work resides in a liminal space between thought and form, silence and expression, how did you arrive at such a position?

Haneen Almoosawi: I am a quiet person and have always felt connected to nature. Through meditation, walking at sunset, or swimming in the sea, I found my strength in stillness, and the peace I find within myself naturally guides my work and reflects in it.

I follow rhythm, whether music or the rhythm of nature, and let it lead rather than directing it. 

That is the space my work lives in, somewhere between feeling and form, just before the image fully arrives.

Why do you work with abstraction? What does it mean for you? Opportunities and challenges? 

Haneen Almoosawi: Abstraction feels like a language of silence to me. There is always something underneath a piece, a story, an energy, a feeling, but abstraction lets it stay beneath the surface rather than spelling it out. Because there are no guidelines or fixed meaning, it hits everyone differently and goes beyond words.

The opportunity is that freedom. I work with color and shape to carry mood and energy, and the viewer brings their own meaning to it without needing to decode anything.

The challenge is the same thing that makes it freeing. Without guidelines, it can be difficult to know when a piece is truly finished.

The questions of materiality are also at the core of your practice. Which materials and mediums have you explored in the past and what are you focusing on at the moment?

Haneen Almoosawi: I have explored different materials over time, from 3D printing and drawing to embroidery and digital work. Each one taught me how materials carry feeling, not just form.

Right now I am focused on combining digital outlines with thread on paper. Thread connects the body and the brain in a way that purely digital work does not, and the tension between the two reflects who I am, a mix of structure and quiet sensitivity.

Threads, both metaphorically and literally, are also at the heart of your work. How did you end up working with threads? 

Haneen Almoosawi: I found thread the way I find most things, by following my curiosity. I was in a haberdashery exploring materials for a new phase in my work when thread caught my attention. The softness of it drew me in immediately.

What kept me was the process. There is something about the repetition that frees the mind while the hands are fully occupied. My brain is in its element, not switched off but loose, and with that comes a quiet sense of excitement about where the piece is going. I am never quite sure what will emerge, and that uncertainty is part of what draws me back.

It connected to the same stillness I find in nature and meditation, without me ever planning it that way. It just fit.

What themes do you investigate through your work? 

Haneen Almoosawi: My work investigates emotion, silence, and the intangible aspects of human experience. Minimalism is central to how I work, not as a style but as a state, stripping back detail to let feeling come through in its purest form.

A significant part of my practice has been getting to know what lives in my subconscious. I gave myself a period of time to explore that, playing music and following the flow, and what emerged were lines and curves that I later connected to my scoliosis. My body was expressing itself through the work without me directing it.

That discovery opened something. Now the relationship between my inner state and the shapes I make is something I consciously investigate and keep returning to.

Landscapes, too, occupy a central stage. On the outer layer your work deals with your beloved Oman, but at the same time there is much more personal and private side of landscapes in your work–your inner world(s). How do you negotiate between the two? 

Haneen Almoosawi: Oman is not just where I am from, it is where I feel most like myself. The sea, the colors of the sunset, the stillness, these are not just visual references, they are a state of mind.

I do not separate the outer landscape from the inner one because for me they are the same thing. The shapes and colors in my work carry both, even if the viewer only sees one.

The emotional layer comes through the subconscious, through the process. That invisible part is what makes the work mine.

Repetition that comes through the threads and stitches also plays a big role in your work making the process very important for the entire work. How do you approach this contemplative quality embedded in your practice?

Haneen Almoosawi: Repetition is not just a technique in my work, it is a ritual. It is part of my day and something I crave when I am not doing it. It has become a form of meditation for me.

When I am stitching, time disappears. My hands are moving but my mind is free, loose and present at the same time. I only stop when my body asks me to.

That state is not separate from the work, it is the work. The contemplative quality people see in the pieces comes directly from the process of making them.

You recently had a solo show in New Delhi at Pristine Contemporary. What was the experience like?

Haneen Almoosawi: Having my solo show at Pristine Contemporary in New Delhi felt unreal. Seeing my work in a new city, a new culture, with a completely new audience was unlike anything before.

What stayed with me most were the conversations. People gave me insights into my own work that I had not realized were there.

It felt like I was bringing a piece of home to India. And in return, India gave me a new way of seeing my own work.

Are there any specific messages you’d like your work to convey to viewers?

Haneen Almoosawi: I want the viewers to feel something when they encounter my work. Curiosity, peace, relief, whatever naturally arises in them.

Follow Haneen Almoosawi on Instagram here. See her on Pristine Contemporary here.