Manal Al Dowayan was born and raised in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Over the course of her education, she partook in a range of courses in differing art institutions in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Bahrain and London.

In 2009, she was a resident artist at the Delfina Foundation in London and attended the Clore Leadership program and in 2010 she was a resident artist at Cuadro Fine Art Gallery in Dubai.

She is currently part of the British Council International Cultural Leaders program.
Al Dowayan has participated in numerous group exhibitions including the British Council ’s Common Ground project in 2006, the Saudi-Italian artist exchange, Nawafith (2007/09), and Edge of Arabia (2008-11). Manal has also exhibited regionally and internationally, in Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Turkey, Bahrain, the UK, USA, UAE and Saudi Arabia.

She won an international call for artists for the Imagining Ourselves anthology in 2003, which was managed by the International Museum of Women in San Francisco. Her photograph Pointing to the Future was exhibited in New York at the 49th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in 2005. Al Dowayan also exhibited her work during the 2009 Venice Biennale and the 2010 Berlin Biennale and Contemporary Istanbul.

Her artworks are part of the permanent collections of the British Museum, the Jordan National Museum of Fine Art, the Abdul Latif Jamil Foundation, the Delfina Foundation in London, the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH), the Nadour Foundation in Germany, and the Barjeel Foundation in Sharjah. Manal is represented by Cuadro Fine Art Gallery in Dubai.