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Between Mercy and Ruin brings together three monumental paintings by Mais Al-Sheikhly that examine our capacity to harm and protect one another. Through inner conflict, the cruelty of a crowd and a reversal of good and evil, the project asks how we respond when someone else is vulnerable, and what those choices reveal about who we are.
Artist Bio
Mais Al-Sheikhly is an Iraqi Canadian contemporary artist based in Toronto. She has exhibited in New York, Miami and Toronto, as well as Jordan. Working across abstraction and symbolic imagery, she uses colour, texture and material experimentation to explore the emotional complexities of human relationships.
Born in Baghdad, Al-Sheikhly brings a perspective shaped by her Iraqi heritage and her life in Canada. The hopes that brought her family to Canada more than thirty years ago, including safety, dignity and possibility, continue to inform her understanding of belonging and the need to be seen.
Her practice encompasses acrylic, oil and mixed media, moving between intimate expressions and monumental canvases. Layered surfaces create a physical presence that invites close attention, while shifts in colour and form allow meaning to emerge gradually. Beauty, tension and tenderness coexist within her work, reflecting experiences that rarely resolve into a single emotion.
Al-Sheikhly approaches painting as a space for recognition. Her works invite viewers to bring their own memories and interpretations to the encounter, creating room for feelings that can be difficult to put into words. Through this exchange, personal experience becomes an opening into a wider conversation about what connects us.