Heba Ismail on Coming Into Her Own Movement 'Hebaism'

Like most painters, Heba Ismail began in childhood, and the craft has remained the axis of her working life. Unlike most artists, she has grown into her own ism — Hebaism — a term she coined which has now become a language entirely her own.

“It’s how I would describe my distinctive art style and brand,” Ismail says to SceneNowSaudi. “I’ve always loved using it to describe my art and any feeling it gives to someone. In other words, it resonates with them.”

Born and raised in Jeddah in the 1990s, Ismail works primarily with painting — thick-lined, angular portraits, often in oil or acrylic; her work is an amalgam of all the periods that have influenced her since childhood, ranging from the Cubist to the Fauvist and well into the Surrealist. Her most protrusive interest, undoubtedly Cubism, which features in the majority of her compositions, can be traced back to her father, whose art collection apotheosized with a massive replica of Picasso’s Guernica hanging in their living room. “It was such a bold, expressive painting, and I feel it resonated with me and influenced my art tremendously.”

Where Ismail excels is at lacing together vibrant color (à la Fauvism), sharp geometry (à la Cubism), and Saudi cultural motifs — such as traditional clothing, scarves, and local props — into compositions that are emotional, deeply personal, and unmistakably Hebaist. Over the years, exhibitions and international magazine features have brought her art to audiences beyond Saudi Arabia, including the Modernity Roots group show at Bilory ArtHaus in Jeddah and a presentation at the Outer Edge Innovation Summit in Riyadh, where her paintings were displayed on large-scale event screens.

“What I love about art is that it’s always intimate and expressive no matter what form it takes. All the angles and shapes tell a story and show an emotion much like a visual poem,” Ismail says to SceneNowSaudi.

What makes Hebaism more than a clever label is the consistency with which Ismail has turned it into a framework: a way of thinking, painting, and seeing that resists easy categorization. “My art usually describes a specific, visceral feeling. I incorporate my Saudi heritage because it’s what I know best and what I am proud of most.”

Her trajectory has been shaped by both discipline and restlessness — the drive to refine her craft while refusing to settle into convention. “I feel like it helped me a great deal, since art isn’t just a hobby it’s a skill and skill requires all the discipline one is able to offer. So I feel my career as a dentist is helps if not completes my career as an artist,” Ismail says to SceneNowSaudi.

For Ismail, Hebaism is a staunch declaration and a refusal to be subsumed into someone else’s movement. It is a practice that continues to unfold canvas by canvas in a voice entirely hers.