ABOUT

Shayan Shahir Nuradeen is a visual artist based in Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Her work includes portrait photography, digital illustrations, murals and paintings. 

Nuradeen started drawing as a young child, encouraged by her father who was both skilled and interested in the arts. After a hiatus from making art to study business in the United States, she returned to her childhood passion. In the summer of 2009, while interning at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, Nuradeen took figure drawing classes in the evening and immersed herself in the city’s arts and cultural scene. 

In 2013, Nuradeen traveled to Italy for a three-week intensive traditional painting course at the Accademia d’Arte in Florence. In 2015, Nuradeen began to study drawing and painting in Kurdistan at the Sky Art Center (2015) and the Ala Art Center (2016–2018). That same year, she began working as a graphic designer for an Italian organization based in Erbil called Un Ponte Per. Her job was designing posters and leaflets for a domestic violence campaign in Kurdistan. She worked for Un Ponte Per for three years, becoming skilled in Adobe programs and digital design and illustration. 

Nuradeen’s experience as a designer for Un Ponte Per combined her interests in humanitarian advocacy with her passion for art and design. She started receiving commissions from people who heard about her design and artwork. She had to-date four solo exhibitions in Erbil. She had her first solo exhibition in 2019 at the French Institute, her third solo exhibition in 2022 with the Goethe Institute, and her fourth solo exhibition was curated by World Vision Iraq in 2024 for the children of Iraq. In 2022, she also had her first artistic residency at Fondación Bilbao Arte in Bilbao, Spain. In 2025, Nuradeen has become an artist in residence at OpenBach Paris for a year long residency. She has painted seven murals in different locations throughout Erbil and has won multiple photography awards. Nuradeen’s art is in multiple private collections throughout Europe, the United States, and Iraq.

Her resume can be found here by clicking: Resume
Her online PDF Portfolio can be found here: Portfolio