List of Influents
shurooqamin
Born to a Kuwaiti father and Syrian mother, Shurooq Amin is a mixed-media interdisciplinary artist and an Anglophone poet whose purpose is to instigate positive change in society. Amin explores, expresses and portrays Arab socio-political taboo issues in her art and poetry. She has a PhD in Ekphrasis, the relationship between art and poetry, and has been published and anthologized internationally. She has been a guest speaker at various universities, a judge for various events and numerous forums such as the Global Economic Forum: Women in Leadership, and an examiner at various Viva Voces. Amin has had 14 solo exhibitions, more than 45 group exhibitions, her paintings have been sold at auctions, commissioned privately and publicly, awarded prizes locally and internationally, and shown at biennales and art fairs, including Venice Biennale and Christie’s auction house. Amin’s poetry has been published into two books to date, in more than 40 literary journals across the globe, and has been anthologized in the Gathering the Tide: An Anthology of Arabian Gulf Poetry by Ithaca Publishers in association with the Virginia Commonwealth University of Qatar. Her second volume of poetry “The Hanging of the Wind” is taught as part of the contemporary literature curriculum in universities in the Gulf. She is the first Kuwaiti to be nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize in December 2007 in the USA. Amin’s work has regularly been banned in her native Kuwait, but she is resilient, consistent and uncensored in her message to defy hypocrisy in Arab society and push dogmatic ideologies towards a more tolerant, just and accepting future. In her spare time, Amin accumulates certificates and licenses in Pilates, Yoga, Scuba Diving, Boating, Interior Decorating, and spends her free time playing board games with her 4 children.