Farah Behbehani

The Path of Light

Farah Behbehani was born in 1981 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, to a family from Kuwait, where she now lives. She received her MA in communication design from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London, in 2007. Her work focuses on calligraphy, looking at the meanings and visual possibilities that Arabic letters can create, at different scales and in a variety of media. She has contributed to a number of architectural projects across Kuwait, and more recently has used embroidery and beadwork in installations that explore individual letter forms and scripts.

Farah has held several solo exhibitions across Kuwait and participated in a number of international shows, most recently Scripts and Calligraphy: A Timeless Journey, National Museum, Riyadh (2021); I Love You, Urgently!, 21,39 Jeddah Arts, and Bahrain Annual Fine Arts Exhibition, Manama (2020); Cairo Biennale (2019); Drawing from Our Culture, King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture–Ithra, Dhahran (2018); and Bab Jeddah, L’Art Pur, Riyadh (2016). In 2009 she published The Conference of the Birds, illustrating Farid al-Din Attar’s poem with jali diwani calligraphy. She is currently a guest lecturer at the American University of Kuwait, Kuwait City.