Scars by Daylight was the solo exhibition of Emirati mixed-media artist, Maitha Abdalla. The Dubai exhibition of Maitha was presented in parallel with Abu Dhabi Art’s group show Beyond: Emerging Artists at Cromwell Place, London.
For her first exhibition at Tabari Artspace, Maitha Abdalla produced a body of work across varied mediums which interrogated the gravity and uncertainty of the in-between years of adolescence. Tradition, transformation, and paradox were at the core of this work as the individual transitioned from youth to adulthood; shifting in outer appearance, social status, and identity. Abdalla perceived this formative and liminal time in our life journey to be a dream-like moment where fantasy and reality conflated. Drawing from regional folktales, faith-based traditions, and mythologies, animals were a recurring symbol throughout Abdalla’s practice; most commonly the pig and the rooster.
For Abdalla, the rooster was a creature of purity that embodied forgiveness and innocence, while the pig was its opposing force, understood to be sinful in Islam. In the context of her art, this duality represented the moment when one left childhood where they harbored no responsibility for their actions into adulthood - a place with newfound responsibility and autonomy.
Inspired by theater, fantasy, tradition, and ritual, there was always a performative element in Abdalla’s art. Working across mediums, the artist produced several works on canvas, a series of photographs, and an installation for this exhibition. When painting, Abdalla typically used her fingers, a process rooted in intimate expression and the transmission of her energy onto the canvas. She drew from the likes of Francis Bacon, following his unabashed portrayal of the human condition, and Paula Rego, who captured corrupted folklore through her magical realist paintings. Like Bacon, Abdalla’s palette was often muted, pointing to the darkness and multifaceted meanings that her childhood folktales came to embody, while her introduction of pastel pink held kitsch, gendered connotations. Her scenes took place in intimate indoor settings where personal dreams and angsts might take action. The bathroom was the backdrop for her installations and photographs. For Abdalla, it was a space where cleansing and grooming rituals, as well as self-reflection, took place and where the idea of adolescent transformation was pronounced most heavily with the body laid bare before the mirror.
