Lines Forms Sumayyah Samaha
Lines and Forms by Sumayyah Samaha
28.09.2024
Reading 3 min

Currently, Leila Heller Gallery is home to Lines and Forms, a solo exhibition by Lebanon-born mixed media artist Sumayyah Samaha which presents her dynamic abstract works, a series she began in 2014. Rooted in spontaneity, they reflect the artist’s captivating exploration of form, line, and colour. The show will be open to the public until 4 November 2024.

Samaha’s creative process starts with laying down forms on a blank canvas, each form leading naturally to the next, creating a visual dialogue. These forms carry individual narratives, connected by lines that guide viewers through the intricate stories unfolding on the canvas. The artist’s choice of medium varies depending on the effect she wants to achieve. Watercolours provide transparency and lightness, while acrylics allow for flatness and easy layering. Over time, Samaha’s canvases have expanded in size, incorporating diptychs and triptychs that reveal increasingly complex and interconnected stories.

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Sumayyah Samaha, Lines and Forms (installation view). Leila Heller Gallery, Dubai, 2024. Courtesy of the gallery.

Known for her deep engagement with colour and attention to detail, Samaha continuously pushes the limits of her art practice. The Lines and Forms exhibition pays tribute to the essence of painting, reflecting Samaha’s belief in the centrality of painting to her creative journey. The show invites everyone to dive into the changing narrative of her work, where form, colour, and expression come together in a compelling dialogue.

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Sumayyah Samaha, Lines and Forms (installation view). Leila Heller Gallery, Dubai, 2024. Courtesy of the gallery.

About the artist

Sumayyah Samaha (b. 1939, Shweir, Lebanon), an Arab-American artist based in Soho (NYC, USA), earned her BA from the American University of Beirut in 1960 and came to the USA on a scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh, where she obtained an MA in 1965. After completing her studies, the artist relocated to New York City.

Samaha has showcased her works in multiple exhibitions, which include Long Voyage (solo) (Leila Heller Gallery, New York, NY, 2023); Darat al Funun (The Khalid Shoman Foundation, Amman, Jordan, 2023); The Emo Show (The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, 2013); Berlin Biennale – ArtWiki: Digital Venue of the 7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2012); ART in Embassies Exhibition (US Embassy, Kuwait City, Kuwait, 2008/09); Strange Fruit (solo) (Denise Bibro Fine Art, New York, 2002), and many others.

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Sumayyah Samaha, Lines and Forms (installation view). Leila Heller Gallery, Dubai, 2024. Courtesy of the gallery.

The artist’s creations are part of several public collections such as the Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI, USA), the Centrum Sztuki Museum (Warsaw, Poland), and Kenkeleba House (NYC), to name a few. She is a recipient of grants from the Pollock Krasner Foundation (2016) and the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation (2015). She has also been an artist-in-residence at the Skopelos Foundation for the Arts (2021) and a two-time resident at the Emily Harvey Foundation Residency in Venice (Italy) (2018 and 2010).

To get more information about Lines and Forms, please visit the official web page of the show.

In addition, you might be interested in visiting Kaleidoscope, Ghizlane Agzenaï’s solo exhibition at Volery Gallery.

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