Ayari’s paintings offer a stranger than fiction response to some of the most controversial issues surrounding the Islamic world. Her ability to present highly provocative ideas in an endearing and sensitive way is facilitated by her use of paint: through images she can suggest things which would be outrageous to say otherwise. Her canvases are terrains where quick comic wit is tempered by a profound engagement with painting’s history and practice, citing influences as diverse as folk art, abstract expressionism, and Arabic artifacts and hand-crafts. In Hive, Ayari’s eyeballs line up in militaristic fashion, like interlocking landmines or giant insects,
imposing a perverse conformity through their suggested violence.