NASO interviews: Talal Al Najjar
On Finding Form
“I try to produce objects and images that create an uncanny effect,” he says. “Something that oscillates between being familiar and alien. That psychological tension — I find it compelling.”
On Formative Influences:
Born and raised in Dubai to a cross-cultural, artistically rich household, Talal has always felt that art was his natural path. "I’ve been making art since I was a very little kid," he recalls. "My mom, an artist, was also a teacher when I was younger, and she told me, as soon as I could hold anything, she put a pencil in my hand." Some of his earliest drawings—kept since he was two years old—already hint at the hybrid, ambiguous forms that now define his artistic language.
Talal’s artistic lineage is woven from both sides of his family. His mother is an artist from New York City, born in Puerto Rico with Midwestern and Levantine heritage. His father, an architect from Dubai, also deeply influenced Talal's visual sensibility. "He’s very knowledgeable in conceptual art and art history," Talal says. "He studied architecture in L.A. and later earned his Master's at Columbia in New York, and I guess I followed a similar path in my own education."
On Making Art:
Growing up in an all-Emirati, all-boys school, Talal stood out not only for being of mixed-heritage but for his unwavering obsession with art. "Everyone knew I liked to draw and paint," he says. "I’d be in Arabic class drawing all over my hands, arms, books, tables–any surface really. Only a handful of people pursued art later who went to that school, whom I also work with." Though academically strong, he always saw art as his true calling.
Still, pursuing art wasn’t always culturally supported. "Studying art and pursuing it as a career is still quite discouraged, not only here but also globally, to different extents, although that’s definitely changing too," Talal explains. “I think that notion stems from the old-school idea that art is simply a hobby to make decor, and thus associated with ‘women’s work’ and not a ‘viable career’ while men are encouraged to do ‘something more serious…’ which I always thought was goofy to say the least, but I’d rather make art than be a ‘finance-bro.’”
On Art School and Early Professionalism:
After graduating high school at 17, Talal moved to Chicago to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), drawn by its interdisciplinary approach. "I didn’t want to be boxed in," he says. "I took painting, film, sculpture, sound, writing—it all fed into my practice."
Even during his studies, Talal was already professionally exhibiting. "I didn’t want to wait until graduation," he says. "I was showing work whenever I came home for breaks." His first show, a figural painting series, came at 16 during Sikka Art Fair. But it was during the pandemic in 2020 that his practice reached a new visibility. Stranded in Dubai, Talal and his brother Ziad launched a pop-up artist-run space in a nearly empty mall, called Nine-01. During this time, Art Jameel commissioned him to create Excrescence, a multi-media sculpture incorporating video and sound, for their 2020 Takeover exhibition.
"I always joke that it’s the distorted cousin of the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey," he says. "Except this one looks like unearthed bones and fossils."
On Finding Community:
2020 also marked a turning point in how Talal viewed the Gulf art scene. "I used to be a bit pessimistic about it. Everything I had seen felt too safe, similar, and unchallenging. Some works even felt self-orientalizing, almost like an ad for tourists" he reflects. But then he discovered a network of like-minded artists—“misfit art school kids”—many returning from top international programs or working under the radar.
Bait 15 in Abu Dhabi became a critical node. "That’s where I first found my kin here," Talal says. "People doing this passionately, professionally, and with intention." Later, newer spaces like Bayt AlMamzar and MamarLab facilitated these communities. He also became aware of regional structural inequities in (and general lack of) arts education. "I met someone from Zayed University who told me, 'They don’t allow the boys to study or major in art.' That only changed recently."
On Interdisciplinary Training:
After his BFA, Talal moved to Los Angeles for his MFA at ArtCenter College of Design. The program’s theoretical grounding helped him deepen his conceptual framework. "My coursework was heavy in theory and academia, within the realms of anthropology, history, mythology, philosophy and so on. We didn’t have actual studio classes but weekly studio visits with professors and influential artists, curators, museum directors, gallerists… constantly having 5-6 people coming into your studio to dissect and discuss was amazing and unique to this program.”
That academic foundation now drives his multi-modal practice. "I work with painting, video, sculpture, sound, writing, and curating. And curating is just part of my art practice—it’s not separate."
On Material Play:
Talal’s work often blends the ancient with the digital, producing artifacts that feel at once futuristic and archaeological. "I make sculptures that seem like ancient relics but are actually invented, remixed, distorted, and/or recontextualized" he explains.
This logic animated his collaborative exhibition Postmordial Soup (2023), where sound, light, and objects from three artists bled into one another. "We didn’t label anything. Everything was porous. We were asking: what’s the soup of now or the near-future?"
On the Uncanny:
The uncanny is a central theme for Talal, drawing from psychoanalysis and meme culture alike. "I like making work that oscillates between the familiar and the strange or alien," he says. One painting titled Postmordial Embrace, enlarges a bizarre internet image of two lizards embracing. "People don’t need to get the exact reference. They just need to feel that weird familiarity, which many people did."
That philosophy extends to how he uses theory. "Sure, I might reference academia like Freud’s The Uncanny, but I’ll do it through an AR hairless chihuahua avatar, dune-bashing cars, and Bronze-Age Arabian artifacts. I like mixing high and low, and utilizing humor—it makes the work more accessible."
On Installation:
While originally rooted in painting, Talal’s recent work leans heavily into installation. "If you give me a space, I won’t hang paintings salon-style," he says. "I want to build environments—lights tinted and dimmed, visible wires, exposed projectors, overlapping videos on objects. Something immersive and disorienting, and without trying to hide the construction or mechanics of it as well."
At his MFA thesis show, over 20 works filled a single, dense space. "People had to sidestep around things. I created obstacles with sculptures and tech. That physical navigation was part of the experience. I like for viewers to be confronted by a hyper-awareness of their own bodily and spatial relation to the works."
On the Future:
Talal is preparing for a solo exhibition later this year, alongside a group show at Bayt Al Mamzar. His recent video piece FACES explores avatars, digital decay, and projection.
"There are animals, mannequins, CGI figures, gargoyles—but only two seconds of a real human face. I’m thinking about how we both personify the inanimate but also how we depict ourselves (or alter-selves) onto non-human things, and all the related layers of distortion."
He’s also back in the studio, sculpting new hybrid forms. "I haven’t painted in a while," he says. "I’m currently more focused on objects that shift between bodies, beasts, machines, or geology, while diving deeper into virtual meshes and physicalizing them."
On Accessibility & Cultural Groundwork:
Talal ends with a note on regional importance. "In the Gulf, new artistic platforms, both grassroots and institutional, have been spawning and evolving recently, but we always need more. Sometimes there is a lack of space, both literally and metaphorically, so I am supportive of non-conventional forms of art making and exhibiting. I love seeing shows that are more strange and need to be investigated conceptually. Not everyone needs to fully understand or even agree with the concepts and ideas artists explore to feel something. That’s the power of art."
In his world, memes meet myth, and digital ephemera becomes sacred. What emerges is a practice rooted in contradiction—but held together by a deep, consistent vision: form without fixity.