Brushstrokes of Change – How Cagla Akpinar is Repainting the Bahraini Art Scene

6 minutes read

In a region where high finance, skyscrapers, and sporting spectacles dominate the narrative, artist Cagla Akpinar is pushing colour into the cracks insisting that Bahrain, too, has room for raw, unfiltered, and deeply intentional creativity. Her work isn’t loud for the sake of being noticed. It’s deliberate. Symbolic. Rooted in themes that challenge, reflect, and ultimately invite conversation.

Whether through massive, joyfully chaotic murals or quietly provocative mixed-media portraits, Akpinar is building something that feels bigger than her. She’s creating visual language in a place where art is still carving out its public voice and she’s doing it on her own terms.

Beyond the Surface: A New Kind of Muralism

You may have seen her work at the Bahrain International Circuit during Formula 1 season or downtown outside the Rotana Hotel in Manama. But don’t mistake these highly visible pieces for commercial decoration. Her approach to muralism goes beyond surface. Each wall becomes a layered field of symbolism and subtext — an expression of Bahraini context filtered through a fiercely individual lens

Recent commissions include:

F1 painting series created specifically for the 2024 Grand Prix, featuring stylised portraits of drivers against backdrops of Bahraini iconography.

Downtown Rotana mural: a vibrant fusion of desert plants, tropical flora, and neon-hued forms that turn a public walkway into a technicolour meditation on diversity and vitality.

Offset commission: a personal portrait gifted to the rapper during his 2024 Bahrain concert, merging celebrity culture with personal artistry.

“Never Look Back” eagle mural: located in a private gym, combining street-style energy with motivational symbolism.

Each piece, even when tied to a brand or public space, maintains her signature: surreal palettes, emotionally loaded symbols, and a refusal to let a surface say nothing.

Rethinking Identity Through Art

Now based in Bahrain, Akpinar’s visual journey started in Ankara, where she studied at Bilkent University (2012–2018), immersing herself in a range of disciplines painting, ceramics, printmaking, sculpture, and video. It was here that she began developing her layered, often surrealist approach, drawing influence from Turkish culture, European underground movements, and spiritual symbolism.

Today, her work tackles a range of nuanced themes, often underpinned by visual metaphors and recurring symbols:

Updated Recurring Themes in Her Work:

Explorations of identity as a fluid, evolving construct not fixed, but shaped by context.

Psychological self-portraits examining solitude, disconnection, and internal dialogue.

Neo-surrealist and magic realist depictions of selfhood particularly the friction between how we present ourselves and how we truly feel.

Critiques of societal expectation, where the body becomes both a site of power and resistance.

Cultural censorship, especially on femininity and public presence.

The rose often featured in her compositions is not merely decorative. It signals beauty forged in adversity, growth through resistance, and the divine feminine.

Her shift in articulation also reflects a strategic clarity: previous descriptors around gender were often misinterpreted in conservative settings. Her updated expression maintains the core meaning while allowing her work to be received with greater openness.

Teaching as Practice: Building Bahrain’s Art Future

Alongside her studio and mural work, Akpinar teaches at two Bahrain-based institutions: the Bahrain Art Academy and her independent studio @artology.bh. These spaces are not only technical training grounds but incubators of voice — especially for young people seeking a creative outlet beyond rigid academic or social paths.

Her method prioritises:

Personal expression over imitation

Emotional authenticity over formal perfection

Public sharing and exhibition opportunities to build confidence and real-world exposure

Experimentation including permission to fail and restart

One standout story includes a student who, after studying with Akpinar, went on to exhibit independently in Egypt. For her, this is the kind of ripple effect that makes education a form of activism.

Murals as Transition Not Destination

Despite becoming known for her large-scale murals, Cagla doesn’t consider muralism to be her final artistic form. Rather, it’s a financially viable and highly public medium that allows her to stay self-sustaining while remaining connected to the community.

“It’s about using public space as a gallery,” she has explained privately. Her murals are accessible, visible, and scalable but her deeper, more introspective mixed-media works remain a crucial part of her portfolio, often created without commission and shared only when they feel complete.

This dual practice one commercial, one personal is what allows her to thrive in Bahrain’s developing creative economy without compromising her voice.

A Cultural Moment, A Strategic Location

Bahrain’s growing interest in local creatives, regional exhibitions, and women-led initiatives is part of what makes the island such fertile ground for artists like Cagla. There’s an openness to new voices particularly from younger generations — that allows for more artistic experimentation than other Gulf states where strict traditionalism might still dominate.

Trends she observes in the current Bahraini art scene:

Rise of independent art spaces and collaborative studios

Growing public acceptance of symbolic and abstract visual narratives

Increased visibility of women artists on public platforms

Demand for multidisciplinary creatives who can switch between gallery, performance, education, and brand collaboration

In this context, Akpinar isn’t working on the margins. She’s right at the cultural centre — helping to define what Bahraini contemporary art looks and feels like in 2025.

Spirituality as Compass

One of the most unique aspects of Akpinar’s practice is her emphasis on art as a spiritual act. This doesn’t refer to religion per se, but to the pursuit of self-knowledge, growth, and alignment. Her works often emerge from periods of reflection, solitude, or significant change and carry the marks of these moments.

She credits international collaborations with artists in Germany and Spain as transformative experiences, exposing her to both structured critique and wild freedom. These encounters helped her think of art as not just expression but dialogue a global conversation about being human.

Artist as Cultural Connector

At her core, Cagla Akpinar is a connector bridging artistic styles, cultural symbols, social commentary, and education into a single evolving practice. Her work speaks fluently across audiences: to young artists, to public space users, to collectors, to critics, to everyday passersby.

Whether painting a wall, mentoring a teen, or building an installation, she approaches her practice with three consistent aims:

To provoke thought

To make space for vulnerability

To challenge the idea of what art “should” be

In a Gulf region still negotiating the boundaries of creative freedom, artists like Cagla Akpinar are vital. They make things visible that were once hidden. They bring colour where there was grey. And they remind us that art isn’t a luxury it’s a necessity.