Khawla Art Gallery in Dubai invites you to have a look at exquisite sculptures by esteemed Emirati artist Azza Al Qubaisi who finds endless inspiration in her heritage and surrounding environment. The exhibition titled Azza’s Desert will be available for viewing until the 26th of April, 2024.
Al Qubaisi’s abstract artworks combine different cultural references and the natural landscape. In her mesmerising art pieces, she captures the desert shapes, patterns, and textures, for example, palm tree branches, an oasis silhouette, lines on dunes, or a falcon wing, which is a reference to falconry, an old traditional Emirati hobby.
The artist’s practice includes using various metals (gold, silver, steel, etc.) and diverse natural materials. She particularly focuses on those which were essential in the UAE’s pre-oil era: the materials that were part of the fabric of life in the past, according to her words. These are oud incense, wood, palm branches, and others. In her work, Al Qubaisi also employs Al Sadu, a traditional form of weaving practised by Bedouin women.
About the artist
Azza Al Qubaisi (b. 1978, Abu Dhabi, UAE) is a jewellery artist, product designer, and sculptor who obtained her BA in Jewellery Design and Allied Crafts from London Guildhall University (UK). She pursued her art education at HCT-CERT (UAE), from which she received an MA in Cultural and Creative Industries.
Al Qubaisi has displayed her works in solo and group shows in the UAE as well as in other countries. The list includes an exhibition in Art Space (a collaboration between The Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi and ALDAR Properties, 2021); Artists and the Cultural Foundation: The Early Years (Cultural Foundation, Abu Dhabi, 2018); Portrait of a Nation (Berlin, Germany, 2017); Portrait of a Nation (Abu Dhabi, 2016); UAE National Day Exhibition at EXPO Milano (Milan, Italy, 2015); Three Generations (Sotheby’s, London, 2013); Sculpture to Wear at Tashkeel (Dubai, 2012); and others. In 2005, Al Qubaisi became the first artist to exhibit in DIFC; in 2004, she represented the Emirates in A 1001 Steps Festival (Helsinki, Finland).
Among the artist’s achievements are winning the British Council’s Young Creative Entrepreneur Award and the Emirates Woman of the Year Award. In 2021, she was granted the Cultural Foundation Art Residency.
To learn more about Azza’s Desert, please visit the exhibition’s official web page.
You might also be interested in looking at Formation III: The Dappled Light of the Sun by Conrad Shawcross and visiting the HUNA Sculpture Park. Additionally, you can see Al Qubaisi’s art piece in the Rooted: Sustainability – an Art Perspective exhibition.
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