Raniya Mansoor is a Maldivian contemporary artist who lives and works in Male’, where she
was born and raised. She paints in oil on canvas, making abstract works that begin from an
emotional state and are built in layers until that state finds its form.
A self-taught artist, she has exhibited since 2015, with works shown in Malé, Singapore,
Madrid, and Dubai. Her earlier practice spans acrylic, resin, alcohol ink, and mixed media, with
works held in private collections and a notable commission of 82 artworks for Finolhu, a
Seaside Collection Resort in the Maldives. In 2026, she transitioned to oil painting, which has
since become the primary medium of her artistic practice.
Mansoor graduated from the National University of Singapore in 2012 with a degree in
Political Science. She subsequently spent nine years living and working in Singapore before
returning to the Maldives in 2021 to pursue her creative and entrepreneurial practice. She
became a mother in 2022, and the short, interrupted sessions of that life shape how her
paintings are made: slowly, across many returns.
She is co-founder and managing partner of Oevaali Art Shop, a fine art and design house
established in 2015 and based in the Maldives and Singapore.Selected Exhibitions
2025, Cracks & Bloom, Mondoir Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE
2025, Terra E Marre, Oevaali Art Gallery, Singapore
2021, Constellations, Galleria Azur, Madrid, Spain
2019, Oceanic, Oevaali Art Gallery, Male’, Maldives
2018, Heritage Through Folk, Oevaali Art Gallery, Male’, Maldives
2015, The Island Collection, Oevaali Art Gallery, Male’, Maldives
Listings
2021–present, Artsy and Artsper
“Emotions are passionate, uncharted, and disorganised. My paintings are emotional
landscapes: attempts to give that natural disorder a form, and to hold it. I don’t steer
them, and I don’t always know where they will go. I come to the canvas in free flow.
Each layer builds on the last and informs the next. I find beauty in the rough marks
and textures that pencil, paint, and brush leave along the way, and I keep them
visible. Each painting is made over many sittings, and it keeps every mood I bring to
it. A single surface often holds several states at once. A work becomes significant
to me when it has given dignity to a particular fragment of lived experience.”
