Well, I’ll Be Damned!
They say family is what we make it be. The loved ones that we surround ourselves with, the friends and acquaintances that populate our lives through the good times and the foul weather. Those that lift us up when we cannot. Perhaps some are lucky enough to have the picket fence upbringing. My childhood was far from the stereotypical household and I can say I learned a hell of a lot from enduring the experience.
“Nature vs Nurture” is a phrase I remember reading from a text book during science class at a very young age, baffled by the notion. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” I not only read in a novel years later but was told over and over again by my mother, who clung to the positivity of life like an ant fighting for its life to remain attached to its leaf in the brutal winds of a hurricane.
We are molded by the reality that is placed before us, and our adulthood is sculpted from the makeshift materials. We grow, we fail, we learn, we climb, and we fall, over and over again. If families are around, we lean on them for support. When the distance of home expands into vastness, we look to those near us for help along the way. Lovers, partners, and community become our comfort, our guiding light. Not without maintenance and certainly not without a few more mishaps and missteps, a path is forged all the same.
“Well, I’ll Be Damned!” is an exquisite title for an impeccable exhibition by Nadia Al-Khalifah and wonderfully presented by Nick Stinson of Stinson House.
Al-Khalifah has been a key figure within Houston’s creative scene for a good while. Standing not necessarily in the shadows, but not front and center either. You know the individuals that you don't see at every opening or event, but that you aren’t entirely surprised to discover they are one of the key engineers, or even the Oz behind the curtain.
I haven’t been surprised by an exhibition in quite some time. Creating for the sake of creating and painting as a practice isn’t as common when it comes to the preparation of an exhibition. Working in the studio to spill the ideas from the inner workings of your mind and your heart. The works are not overly technical, nor are they hyper realistic. The skill is there but the information slightly redacted. Her paintings are stylized yet honest and genuine, with the unfiltered day to day clearly portrayed. Nadia Al-Khalifah is a great painter with nothing to prove, and it's damn refreshing!
Stinson House is a cute bungalow and exhibition space located in the 3rd ward. An incubator as much as it is a performative vibe. I say this because the events and exhibitions that transpire there have a deep pulse within the arts community and while you are immediately into the gallery space, it's clearly Nick's warm home once you get past the beaded curtains. Its warm and inviting and has a variety of sparkling waters which await each guest.
Founder and curator Stinson had this to say about the drive of space:
“It’s a weird phrase but the best I can come up with is that I like to do But For shows. Shows that wouldn’t happen But for the opportunity that the Stinson House offers. In the case of Únies Gonzalez's show, Leave the Kitchen Light On, it was that there wasn't really anyone else who was going to let them take over the entire home as the show required. In the case of my friend Sivan Lavie and her show, ice cream on the tip of my tongue, ‘but for’ just meant that she's a friend who lives in New York and would never have randomly done a show in Houston but for my sending out a random invite. For some people it's their first solo show. I LOVE first shows. I love when someone is on the cusp of doing something, and the opportunity to show at Stinson House pushes them over the edge into doing it -- that's really my primary motivation.”
Stinson goes on to say that Al-Khalifah’s work spoke to him and he was drawn to her “sweet lil perfect works” as much as he was drawn to the artist herself. Adding that the exhibition is just a lovely, delightful, slightly freaky little show. After many conversations, Stinson and Al-Khalifah decided to let the works speak for themselves, and I'd agree it was the purity of the work that fuels the exhibition.
An exhibition doesn’t have to be a knock down, all out, blow out of a display. The paintings can just be paintings. In all honesty I think that is what kills an exhibition and body of work. When the Ego takes over, the show fizzles. Al-Khalifah doesn’t rely on bells and whistles or flare to create work. She didn’t set out to manifest all that the viewer desires.
Instead, she made the works she wanted to make, pieces about the people she loves and the family she wanted in her very own reality. With a feather-light touch, she created a ten ton impact. The paintings feel whimsical, reminiscent of Alex Katz or Elizabeth Peyton. A heavy handed motive or brush stroke need not be present.
“Because her portraits are so intimate, I was worried whether they could hold their own in a reasonably sized room with a MASSIVE wall (17 feet by 9 feet on one wall alone). Nadia navigated the challenge expertly, in my opinion. There are surprising moments... and really, how do you surprise someone in just two open rooms?! It sets a tone of invitation into her world... nothing to hide here, just Nadia and her friends and family hanging out”, Stinson adds and he couldn’t be more correct.
Well, I’ll be Damned! Is open by appointment until the 20th, and it's highly suggested for you to experience this show. Study a few pages from Al-Khalifah, and stop hustling so hard. Let your work commandeer the conversation. Make work to make work and make paintings to embrace love and healing. Nadia establishes this and the end result is spectacular.
Well, I’ll Be Damned! Nadia Al-Khalifah
Stinson House
2718 Ruth St. Houston TX 77004
IG: Stinsonhousetx
PM: These works are intriguing. There is much projected, presented and informing your audience with such intimate paintings. They are touching and emotional. Tell me about the energy piloting this show and body of work?
NAK: Well, I’ll Be Damned began as a private outlet that helped me manage my mental health and slowly grew into a body of portraits, where my friends appear in bursts of color and humor. While my parents show up as the complicated puzzle I keep trying to solve. So the show maps how I use portraiture, memory, and humor to process who I am in relation to the people who made me, the people I’ve chosen, and the people I continue to love, with the title nodding to those moments of recognition when I see myself reflected in these faces.
Your first solo show. Daunting I'm sure.
Yes! My very first solo show at 34, no less. I haven’t exhibited my work publicly since my post-college years. That wasn’t exactly intentional; I just found myself more interested in growing professionally (I work for a non-profit museum) than I was in putting myself out there as an artist. So instead, art became this quiet, personal thing—a way to take care of my mental health, or to whip something up that would make a friend laugh or feel warm inside.
How did these paintings come to be? I gather that your sense of comfort amongst loved ones is strong. Is this the motivation? What fans the flame with these pieces and sparks their conception?
A big part of my mental health journey has been learning how to use what comes with depression and anxiety, rather than fight against it. My anxiety, for example, is great at overanalyzing things, so I channeled that into exploring portraiture and how it connects to memory.
The subjects in Well, I’ll Be Damned fall into two groups: my parents, and my closest friends. Painting my friends often turns into humor, color, and connection—those deep eyes and bright palettes. Painting my parents, though, feels like scratching an itch I’ll never quite reach—trying to understand myself through two people who haven’t been in the same room together in decades. Nobody’s dead, but let’s just say “toxic divorce” and “complicated childhood” left me with a lot to untangle. Painting them is my way of analyzing those relationships, sometimes with heaviness, sometimes with laughter.
Do past and childhood play into the show? At the opening you mentioned your heritage and the exhibition as a room almost solely dedicated to your mother and father. For me it is a sweet and tender moment.
People often tell me the section featuring my parents feels tender, but tenderness wasn’t exactly my goal. What I really wanted to show was my obsessive inner dialogue with each of them, which still trips me up daily.
I’m the fourth child of an American mother and a Saudi Arabian father whose volatile relationship shaped my sense of family, identity, and self. One photo of them has followed me for years: my father in a traditional thawb, my mother in patterned wrap pants, standing side by side but not touching, not even interacting. That’s them, together, but apart, orbiting in their own selfish natures while the kids fell into depression and isolation in the fallout.
I’ve painted them many times over. And while I never sit down thinking, “Ah, time to heal!” I often realize afterward that the act of painting chips away at some of my resentment. The funny part? I mostly paint them because it makes me laugh. These two can’t stand each other, so putting their portraits together is like my private little comedy sketch. I’m aware that’s a bit twisted, but hey, it works.
Why gouache, the light pencil intervention? Why this over oils or acrylic which may offer a heavier feel? What summons your gentle palette?
My love for gouache really comes from my training. One professor saw how I was sneaking watercolor techniques into my acrylics and pushed me to explore that overlap, which eventually led me to gouache as the perfect in-between with its bold color and flexibility. I paint on unprimed panels so the gouache sinks in like watercolor, letting me layer transparent washes or block in opaque fields depending on how I want memory to feel in the work, and drawing materials like graphite and colored pencil remain part of my process because they were my earliest and most accessible tools, cheap enough to carry everywhere as a kid and still essential for giving my portraits their final touches.
We had spoken to Hassan Al Jaber, the Iranian war videographer for CNN, and it was fascinating. How did this conversation with you two begin? What was your take on his desire to change his subject matter so drastically?
That was a wild surprise. After being out of Houston’s creative circles for so long, I didn’t expect an award-winning video journalist to turn up at my show. He’s worked with CNN and the Associated Press, covering the Iraq War, and now does freelance sports work. He reached out through Stinson House, interested in filming the reception and interviewing me.
I’ve learned over time that my last name tends to spark recognition from people with ties to the Middle East. Even though I am super Americanized, people approach me with genuine curiosity and connection.
I admitted to him upfront that I don’t speak Arabic, because I’ve always worried about misrepresenting myself as an “Arab artist.” But he put me at ease right away—warm, thoughtful, curious. He even reminded me a little of what my father might look like now, which of course sent me spiraling into memory analysis. We talked about arts funding in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 initiative, and he insisted my work could have real resonance overseas. I left that conversation feeling seen, supported, and genuinely encouraged.
I spoke of emotion. How does the inner Nadia fit into these works? Is it moderate or deep and why create with these emotions?
Emotion is kind of my fuel. Most of my paintings start with a sudden urge to just begin that is often fleeting. It’s not that I go into autopilot, but more that I can zone out and let my unconscious steer the first stages. Then I’ll walk away, come back, and suddenly realize I’ve made a painting.
It sounds ridiculous, but it’s how my brain works: bursts of inspiration, drifting off, circling back. The emotion is baked in from the start, whether it’s humor, heaviness, or something in between. It’s not deliberate, but it’s unavoidable.
