This summer, Dubai got a little softer, a little dreamier—thanks to multidisciplinary artist Jenna Bitar. In an exclusive villa show with ArtKōrero, Jenna unveiled Botanique, an immersive experience that reimagines the Arabian Gulf summer through dusty earth tones, botanical textures, and raw emotion. Raised in Bali by a Lebanese dad and a French mom, Jenna’s work is deeply shaped by nature and nostalgia, blending memory with material in a way that feels both grounded and ethereal. From her breakout solo show in Manhattan to collaborations with Maison Margiela, she’s been quietly (but powerfully) leaving her mark.
Now, with Botanique and a curated exhibition at One&Only The Palm, she invites us to feel the heat—not as something to escape, but something to lean into.
KHAMSA engaged in an artistic conversation with Jenna on our latest Creative Talks.
All images are courtesy of Jenna Bitar.
١. You’ve described intuition as a compass in your work. But has there ever been a moment where that intuition led you somewhere uncomfortable or unexpected—creatively or personally?
Absolutely—intuition is central to my process. When I paint, I enter a sort of flow state where thought quiets and instinct takes over. It’s meditative, almost trance-like. I’m not “thinking” in a traditional sense; I’m following an internal current that feels both intimate and ancient.
Interestingly, it’s not when I follow my intuition that I end up in discomfort—but when I ignore it.
The times I’ve strayed from that inner compass, whether in life or in my work, I’ve found myself in confusion or disarray. Those moments often manifest as creative blocks, emotional turbulence, or even physical accidents. It’s as if life gently—or sometimes forcefully—redirects me back to that intuitive truth.
So for me, it’s not intuition that leads to the uncomfortable. It’s the resistance to it. Learning to trust and honor that voice, even when it feels irrational or inconvenient, has been the most important—and humbling—lesson.
٢. Do you ever feel caught between the places that shaped you and the ones that claim you today? How do you reconcile those multiple homes and identities in your art?
Growing up in Bali in the 90s, before the wave of modern development, meant being deeply immersed in something raw and untouched. The island was wilder then—less paved, less filtered—and that environment imprinted on me a profound sensitivity to nature, space, and rhythm. I think that early immersion created a kind of internal compass, one that’s attuned to the organic, the elemental, and the spiritual pulse of a place.
Bali holds a very unique energy. Energetically—especially considering its geographic location—it’s a place of intense creation and ambition. You feel it in the air. It’s not passive or slow; it’s electric, sometimes overwhelming, but it moves things forward. That energy has been a crucial undercurrent in my work and my process.
I once tried a residency in Mallorca, which astrologically is considered a Taurus island—an energy that, in theory, aligns with my own zodiac.
I thought it would nourish my creativity, but in practice, it slowed me down too much. I became almost inert there. It taught me that harmony with a place isn’t just about alignment—it’s about ignition. And I need places that light that internal fire.
Paris, on the other hand, has been calling my name. I haven’t fully answered yet—I haven’t tested what it’s like to truly live there. But I’m drawn to its contrast: the cultural density, the speed, the historical depth. I’m curious to see how it might sharpen or reframe my artistic identity. So I suppose I don’t reconcile my “multiple homes” in a fixed way—instead, I allow them to speak through me, each in their own time, depending on what the work asks for.
٣. Texture plays a central role in your storytelling. What materials or techniques did you experiment with in Botanique that helped you evoke the rawness of nature’s emotional landscape?
Because my process is so deeply intuitive and almost “thoughtless” in the best sense of the word, experimentation happens naturally—almost accidentally. I often find myself discovering new materials in the midst of everyday life. One day, for example, I had to change the lock on my door, and as the keyhole was being drilled out, I noticed these beautiful silver flakes of metal—sawdust from the drill. Something about them struck me immediately. I collected them and later incorporated them into a canvas washed in deep, earthy khakis. The final piece had a quiet, wabi-sabi sensibility to it, and the metal dust offered a glinting, imperfect elegance—like a nod to kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken objects with gold to highlight, rather than hide, their fractures.
I also often work with organic materials that I prepare myself—boiling avocado seeds to extract a soft, dusty pink, or mixing wax, clay, spices, and soil to create rich, textured pigments.
These mediums have a life of their own. They crack, shift, and evolve on the canvas, which mirrors the emotional terrain of nature itself—unpredictable, flawed, and organic.
٤. Your work often feels like a meditation on the feminine without ever being overly gendered. What does femininity mean to you, and how does it flow through your work, consciously or unconsciously?
Ooh, this is a very interesting question. I think it speaks to my previous show in Dubai, “A Name You Whisper,” which revolved around ideas within the feminine spectrum—love, longing, vulnerability, softness, and intuition. But also strength. The kind of quiet strength that doesn’t shout, but resonates deeply.
For me, femininity isn’t about gender in a fixed sense. It’s an energy—a rhythm, a sensitivity, a way of perceiving and processing the world. I think it flows through my work almost unconsciously, in the way I approach texture, silence, space, and tone.
I rarely set out to “express” femininity directly. Instead, I think it naturally emerges through the process, through intuition and the willingness to feel and to allow. It’s less about representing femininity and more about embodying it in the act of creation.
٥. You’ve spoken about surrender in your process—trusting what cannot be explained. Outside the studio, what are the spaces or rituals that allow you to surrender in the same way?
In all creative acts! This might sound funny, but one of my favorite rituals is improvised singing to my dogs when I get home—I put on a whole show for them. It’s playful, instinctive, and completely free. There’s something deeply childlike about it, and that kind of uninhibited joy is a form of surrender in itself.
I also find that same surrender in the dramatic arts. In acting, especially when exploring emotional depth, you have to let go of control—release mental constructs and be fully present, reacting in real time. It’s very similar to painting for me: both require openness, vulnerability, and trust in the unknown.
Whether I’m in class, in the kitchen baking, in the studio, or simply in a moment of play, these are all spaces where I get to lose the mind and follow the moment. That, to me, is the essence of surrender.
٦. Much of your work resists linear narrative—it feels more cyclical, like nature itself. When you’re building a series like Botanique, how do you decide when a piece is “complete” within that ongoing rhythm?
When we talk about abstract art, the question of when a piece is “complete” always comes up—because abstraction, by nature, defies the boundaries we often try to place on things.
It invites us to ask: what does it even mean for something to be finished?
For me, it’s less about a specific endpoint and more about a feeling. There’s a moment when I look at the canvas and a sense of balance washes over me—an inner stillness. My work has often been described as meditative or calming, and I think that’s a reflection of the internal state I’m in when I paint. When that energy comes through clearly, I know the piece has arrived where it’s meant to.
That said, it’s not always immediate. My process is heavily layered—physically and emotionally. Some works evolve over days or weeks. I often leave the studio and come back the next day just to see how the piece has dried, shifted, or grown in my absence. There’s something beautiful in how it continues to develop on its own, almost like it’s living.
I don’t set rules for myself. I don’t aim to finish a work with as few or as many gestures as possible. I surrender to the rhythm of the piece and let it guide me. Each work takes on a life and identity of its own—completely unique. Even if I tried to recreate a painting, I couldn’t. I’ve learned that the hard way with commissions—each one has its own soul, its own palette, its own voice.
It’s wild, unpredictable, and deeply intuitive.
٧. There’s a tension in Botanique between erosion and elegance, stillness and growth. How do you manage that duality in your process without forcing a resolution?
That’s such a beautiful way to put it—I love the comparison between erosion and elegance. Botanique is very much an ode to nature, and nature itself holds that duality effortlessly. It’s made of both the raw, masculine strength of cliffs and stone, and the delicate grace of a blooming rose or a seashell whose spiral follows the divine logic of sacred geometry.
In my process, I don’t try to manage that tension, and I certainly don’t try to resolve it. I let both forces exist. Sometimes an idea arrives first—an emotion, a texture, a vision. Other times the material leads, and the concept emerges through the act of creation. But somehow, whether led by thought or instinct, they always seem to find one another and meet at a quiet center.
I suppose the magic lies in allowing that coexistence—to let chaos and beauty live side by side, as they do in nature, without needing to choose one over the other.
٨. If one of your pieces could whisper something to a stranger walking past it—just a phrase, a breath, a truth—what would you want it to say?
I got goosebumps reading this question. It immediately brought me back to my last exhibition, A Name You Whisper. There’s something so intimate about the idea of art whispering—a quiet invitation, a message meant just for you.
I love how each of my exhibitions carries a thread from the one before it, like chapters in a larger conversation. If one of my pieces could whisper to a passerby, I think it would say:
“Connect to Mother Nature in every moment.”
It would be soft but insistent—a reminder to come back to the earth, to presence, to something ancient and true. Maybe even a whisper that lingers long after they’ve walked away.
And on that note, I invite you all to come and experience this body of botanical works at The One&Only in Dubai, with ArtKorero—perhaps the whispers will be louder there!
