MALAK ALZEYOUDI (ABU DHABI)
Aysha Al Hamrani, an Emirati digital artist, started drawing from a very young age, at a time when the internet was becoming a space for young people to share their work directly with their audience. Digital art gave Aysha the flexibility to experiment, revise and combine different techniques.
“It allowed me to move between disciplines and eventually build a career around visual storytelling,” she told Aletihad.
Aysha’s journey demonstrates that creativity can become a sustainable profession through character development, collaboration and campaign creation. “My journey gradually evolved from simply being someone who loved drawing into becoming an artist, illustrator, educator and creative entrepreneur.”
Aysha’s project, NeFaFa, transforms a character representing Emirati identity and culture into intellectual property. “NeFaFa allows me to think about how Emirati stories can exist as intellectual property and travel across different forms,” she said.
By introducing NeFaFa to Japanese audiences, she demonstrated how art can serve as a powerful vehicle to present the richness of Emirati visuals.
Through her art, Aysha creates collaborative experiences with local and global brands, coffee shops, organisations and companies. “I realised that creativity has value beyond the artwork itself and an illustration can become a product,” she said.
This vision is captured in her local collaboration with Saddle, an Emirati cafe and dining concept featuring her exclusively designed artist pieces.
Furthermore, she uses visual arts as a tool to translate often hard-to-describe feelings into tangible, meaningful artworks for the public to be a part of. An example of this is a collaboration with Adidas x Backyard Jumeirah Limited Merch, themed for desserts and coffee lovers.
Aysha also brings stories to life for major organisations. Her work has been seen by students through cover illustrations for Ministry of Education Arabic books.
For domestic audiences, she also designed a cover story named “Maryam and Palm Farm” for Sail Publishing that became a number one bestseller at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair.
Aysha designed children’s storybook cover based on a young, deaf Emirati girl, Noura Alkaabi. The young author uses written words to share her feelings, express her thoughts and open a window into her world.
She believes that Illustration is a fascinating challenge because it interprets someone else’s words through visual language. “Literature preserves through words, while illustration can give those stories another entry point and allow them to reach audiences,” said Aysha.
When she’s not creating art, she is leading art workshops for children at summer camps. She teaches kids how to observe their environment and culture, guiding them to translate these elements into drawings.
Through these workshops, her goal is to help children understand and appreciate the architecture, characters and environment around them.
“Your artistic voice develops through practice, experimentation, failure and curiosity,” Aysha said.
Her work also extends to social impact through campaigns where art serves as a communication tool. Her most significant contribution was participating in Bupa’s global “Express Your Health” initiative in London.
Through this project, she highlighted how her daily artistic practice supports her wellbeing and emotional balance. “Creativity becomes most powerful when it allows us to understand who we are, and helps others understand us too,” Aysha added.