Art Basel Qatar 2026

The Third Line is thrilled to present HILUX, a new body of work by Sophia Al-Maria debuting at the inaugural Art Basel Qatar 2026. In HILUX, Al-Maria returns home to Doha and to her originary practice of drawing and cartooning with a major new body of mixed media work. Rendered in monumental ink and watercolor paintings, the series marks a shift from video toward a more intimate, gestural mode of art-making, layered with complex historical and symbolic references.

Taking the Toyota Hilux—a ubiquitous civilian vehicle turned emblem of resistance—as both subject and structure, Al-Maria traces symbolic timelines that fold and bend across centuries of human movement, extraction, and resistance. At the center of these works are goats and sheep: the first domesticated animals, whose entanglement with human survival and symbolism marks the beginning of civilization itself.

Through spiraling compositions, swirling timelines, and fragmented manga motifs, HILUX charts the entropic cycles of empire, acceleration, and collapse. Simultaneously elegiac and insurgent, the works ask what it means to return to land, to language, to form, and how history can be read in the lines of a speeding truck or a goat.

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AB by Artist Collection by Sophia Al-Maria

In tandem with Al-Maria’s on-site presentation at Art Basel Qatar, the AB by Artist Collection, available at Qatar Art Basel Shop, features works by the artist. Using the language of her new body of work, HILUX, the artist has applied truck decal–inspired graphics to tote bags and keychains, plotting a timeline of the Gulf.