Battoula by Ghada Al Suwaidi
A Qatari woman in traditional dress, painted in the same soft pastels as the port's walls.
Battoula — named for the traditional face covering worn by women across the Gulf — is Qatari artist Ghada Al Suwaidi's contribution to the Mina District walls, painted for World Wide Walls: Doha 2023. It depicts a woman in traditional Qatari dress, but rendered in unusual, softened colour: the artist matched her palette to the pastel façades of the port itself, so the figure seems to emerge from the building rather than sit on top of it. It's a quiet, deliberate piece of localisation — a local artist putting a distinctly Qatari subject on a Qatari wall, in a festival otherwise full of international visitors, and letting the architecture set the tone.
Exhibo editorial
Among the 13 artists of the 2023 edition, only three were Qatari, and Al Suwaidi's Battoula is one of the clearest statements of homegrown identity in the district. The choice to dissolve the figure into the port's own colours makes the point gently: this heritage belongs here, on this wall, in this light.
How to find it
On a façade among the pastel lanes of Mina District; the soft-toned figure blends with the building colour, so look closely as you walk. Pairs naturally with the other Qatari works (Noura Al Mansoori) on the same stroll.
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