When Art Becomes Therapy | Nourine Hammad on Motherhood and Healing

Nourine is a visual artist whose intricately detailed pencil drawings explore the line between reality and constructed imagery. Her immersive works challenge perception and invite quiet reflection. Beginning with photography or digital compositions, she meticulously translates her ideas into pencil on paper blending contemporary image-making with traditional technique.

Through themes of identity, interaction, and perception, her focus on objects, surfaces, and textures creates a heightened sensory experience, prompting deeper reflection on how form and space shape human experience. In this intimate 90 minute conversation, Mo and Nourine traverse a wide spectrum from the evolving art world and the boundaries of creative freedom, to motherhood, postpartum depression, and the quiet strength it takes to support loved ones through life’s most testing moments.

0:00 Intro

1:20 What Is Hyperrealism?

5:02 From IBM Engineer to Full-Time Artist

9:53 Instability, London Survival

12:41 Independence, Failure Mindset Resilience

19:18 Gulf Art on the Rise

25:27 What Makes “Art”?

28:00 Inspiration, Process Research Ethics

38:52 Burnout vs. Patience

45:00 Politics, Palestine Artistic Freedom

47:12 Creative Blocks

50:00 Postpartum Depression

59:02 Family Balance, Presence Digital Detox

1:09:11 Digital Addiction, Parenting Screens

1:13:23 Preparing Kids For Life

1:15:43 The IWC Minute

1:18:04 Life Without Art

:20:30 Mantras Influences

1:24:06 Childhood, Vision, and the Gift of Observation

1:26:53 Closing Thoughts and Farewell