Iris Projects at MiZa (Port Zayed, Abu Dhabi) presents Hard Like Tears, Soft Like Glass, Emirati artist Shamsa Al Omaira’s first solo exhibition in 12 years: the result of a mentorship project and a significant statement on memory and family experience.
From 23 January to 30 April 2026, the gallery space is serving as a “room of memory”, where the artist works with forms that recall everyday and childhood life, such as bed linens, pillows, jelly desserts, and domestic textiles. These soft, familiar motifs become sculptures and objects that conceal ceramic and glass shards inside, so fragility and danger are literally embedded in shapes associated with comfort and protection.
The project concludes a year of mentorship with curator and critic Nadine Khalil. Alongside drawing and works on paper, Shamsa Al Omaira now uses wood, stitching, and large‑scale installations, expanding her spatial language.
The artist describes her works as a form of personal confession, touching on themes of family, childhood, generational gaps, and bilingualism: between Arabic and English, between what is spoken and left unsaid. Growing up in a large family (she is the second youngest of ten children), she turns fragments of domestic memories into restrained yet emotionally charged objects.
A key motif is the behaviour of materials: glass and ceramics, associated with hardness and fragility, are combined with fabric and jelly‑like forms, creating a constant tension between the desire to touch and the fear of being hurt. In this sense, the title “Hard Like Tears, Soft Like Glass” becomes an accurate formula for the emotional state conveyed by the works.
Iris Projects founder Maryam Al Falasi notes that the exhibition shows how Al Omaira transforms personal experience into a carefully considered material language, reinforcing her position as one of the most compelling artists of her generation in Abu Dhabi. Curator Nadine Khalil connects the project to a broader interest in “unofficial histories” and in how women artists from the UAE rethink family memory and everyday life through object and installation.
About the artist
Shamsa Al Omaira (b. 1989, UAE) is a multidisciplinary artist and designer who has earned a Bachelor of Arts in Art & Design from Zayed University. She is a recipient of the Salama Bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship, awarded by the Shaikha Salama Bint Hamdan Foundation. Her practice explores the complexity of human emotions and psychological states, engaging with thoughts, feelings, and behavioral responses. Through her artistic process, Al Omaira’s work moves beyond representation to become a form of intimate personal confession.
To get more information about Hard Like Tears, Soft Like Glass, please visit the official web page of the exhibition.
In addition, you might be interested in viewing In the Space of Becoming by Alia Hussain Lootah and Rays, Ripples, Residue, a collective exhibition at 421 Arts Campus.
