Successful

each character, fit for a “Gluten-free” generation. Each painting makes either socio-political inferences or explores the taboos within the society, exploring ideas of DNA, the repetitions and recursions of history, a new brand of feminism, the allegory to the mating world and the animal kingdom.

Social media is a pertinent topic in the discussion between the public and private display of identity today. While it has brought wider freedoms of expression with anonymity, it has also compelled restrictions and deceit as users carefully curate an online persona that may wholly be divorced from their reality.

Close to a decade after the controversial shutdown of her exhibition, It’s a Mad World, the incident still looms over Amin. She confesses to having mixed feelings, “I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, it is a good thing that happened in hindsight because it really woke up the art society in Kuwait. The incident trended everywhere and that is how I ended up on BBC’s Hardtalk. So in a way it was good for my career in the long term and good for art in general in Kuwait because younger artists started becoming more brave after that. I was a scapegoat, I took the brunt of it. The artists who came after me received a gentler slap on the hand, if they did anything wrong. I know a couple of artists who have tried to push boundaries and have been successful at it. So I think that was the advantage of it.”

The disadvantage, Amin adds, was the psychological burden she carried for months, adding, “The effect on