Hanaa Malallah Hanaa Malallah was born in 1958 in Nasiriyah, a city in the south of Iraq located near the Ur archaeological site. As a child, Malallah's family moved from Nasiriyah to Baghdad where she continued her education. At 15, Malallah enrolled in a 5-year program at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad, earning a diploma in Graphic Arts in 1979. She received a general education in art practice during her first three years in the program, including training in painting, drawing, printmaking, and Art History. During her final two years, she specialized in printmaking under the tutelage of Rafa Nasiri, an artist and teacher who had recently established the Graphic Arts department in 1974. In 1976, Malallah began working as an illustrator for one of the first illustrated children's magazines in the Arab world, Majallati, published from Iraq, to afford her art supplies and continued in that position until 1983. She also designed thirteen children's books for which she was awarded a prize by UNESCO in 1985. In 1983, Malallah was recruited by Sami Mahdi, the editor of al-Jumhuriya newspaper, to illustrate a weekly literary column written by Hatim al-Sakr, entitled "[Sketches in Pencil,]" published every Thursday between 1983 and 1989. Soldiers on the frontlines of the Iran-Iraq War sent letters to the newspaper expressing their appreciation for the illustrations. In 1987, she had her first solo show at al-Riwaq Gallery where she exhibited a selection of her original illustrations for "[Sketches in Pencil.]" In 1988, Malallah earned her BA in Oil Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad and, after participating in multiple group exhibitions, held her second solo exhibition in 1991. The exhibition, "[Documents from a Visit to the Museum,]" showed work she produced as part of her study of archaeological artifacts at the Iraqi National Museum. The museum would close that year due to extensive damage sustained during the Gulf War. In the same year, Malallah participated in the eighth Wasiti festival and exhibition and was awarded the first prize in painting for her depiction of the Warka Vase.

Between 1993 and 1995, Malallah was a member of the Society for Aesthetic Studies, a group of artists, writers, and scholars who met weekly on Tuesdays to lecture on different topics related to the plastic arts. The group was formalized by Shakir Hassan Al Said – Malallah's colleague and former Art History teacher at the Institute of Fine Arts – after he noticed the natural congregation of like-minded individuals at the cafeteria of the Saddam Arts Center where he worked as part of the Ministry of Culture. The Society distributed the free bulletin, al-Wasiti, that published essays on aesthetics and the art scene. Malallah was on al-Wasiti's editorial board alongside Shakir Hassan Al-Said, Hatim Al-Sakr, Farouk Yousif, and Mahasin Abdelqader, among others. In 2000, Malallah received her MA in painting from the University of Baghdad where she cultivated a theoretical approach to ancient artifacts which favored their role as interpretive signs and symbols. She developed her theoretical perspective in her doctoral thesis, "[Logic Order in Ancient Mesopotamian Painting,]" which she wrote under the supervision of artist Sa'ad al-Ta`i, professor of aesthetic studies Najim Haidar, and two philosophers. She was awarded her doctorate in the Philosophy of Painting from the University of Baghdad in 2005 and taught at the university until her departure in 2006.

In 2006, Malallah received an invitation from the head of the Department of Contemporary Art and Photography at the Institut du Monde Arabe to participate in their artist residency program in Paris. Her residency was followed by fellowships at the School of Oriental and African Studies and the Chelsea College of Art in London, and a teaching post at the Royal University for Women in Bahrain.

Malallah is said to belong to the Eighties Generation, a term coined by art critics for a group of ten young artists who exhibited together at a show organized by the Department of Plastic Arts at the Saddam Art Center in Baghdad. The Eighties Generation referred to artists whose creative upbringing coincided with two wars – the Iran-Iraq War between 1980 and 1988; and the Gulf War between 1990 and 1991. Under the conditions of war, emerging artists could not travel abroad to train, as the prominent artists of the previous generation had done. The isolation from the international art community is partly what led Malallah to return to her Mesopotamian heritage for aesthetic and conceptual inspiration.

Malallah currently works and resides in Hull, UK.