A Syrian calligrapher and visual artist, Al-Saai was

born in 1970. He grew up in a household surrounded by painting, music and calligraphy. By the age of eighteen he had already established a reputation as a calligrapher. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus with a postgraduate degree, and a degree in calligraphy from the Center for Islamic Arts in Istanbul. Al-Saai has presented more than 32 solo exhibitions around the world including in Mexico, the USA, Canada, Denmark, France, Belgium and Italy. In 1997, at the first International festival of Calligraphy in Tehran, Iran, Al-Saai was shortlisted as one of the top ten calligraphers in the world. He obtained a certificate of distinction at the festival of music, poetry and calligraphy in Obernai, France. In 2001, he won the prize for the Jali Diwani calligraphy style at the Fifth International Arabic calligraphy competition in Istanbul, Turkey. Al-Saai works in a range of styles, from classical used for poetry quotations, to radically inventive compositions, where his lettering is fragmented into fantastic illustrative compositions.