Abu Dhabi Art | 18-26 November | Traces of The Land Virtual Booth

19 - 24 November 2020
  • Traces of The Land draws together reflections by two artists, Hazem Harb and Samah Shihadi, on their native Palestinian land. The curation comprises works, across varied mediums, that unite the figurative, the abstract and the landscape while proposing both male and female perspectives on the physical space and its inhabitants.

     

    Hazem Harb

    Visual artist, Hazem Harb examines social, architectural and geographical spaces through his contemporary approach to collage and in doing so succeeds in materialising complex and unfamiliar terrain. Operating as a researcher, by collecting and synthesising archives of rarified ephemera including photographs, negatives and maps, Harb mediates his materials in a manner which dismantles them from a static space. Through collage he stitches them together to form fresh constructions that invite unheard discourses and a historical rethinking. Map of the Land #1 and 2 see figures from the artist’s social world cut-out, recoloured and reconfigured to form a new presence while for Eternal Map (2019) the artist traces white, red and green strings over a 1930s photograph of agricultural workers to form the twists and turns of his country’s map in its traditional colours.

     

     

  • Hazem Harb

    • Hazem Harb, Eternal Map, 2019
      Hazem Harb, Eternal Map, 2019
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    • Hazem Harb, Map of Land Project (Diptych), 2020
      Hazem Harb, Map of Land Project (Diptych), 2020
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    • Hazem Harb, Map of Land Project (Diptych), 2020
      Hazem Harb, Map of Land Project (Diptych), 2020
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    • Hazem Harb, Map of land 1# 2# Diptych, 2019
      Hazem Harb, Map of land 1# 2# Diptych, 2019
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  • Samah Shihadi

     

    Hyperrealist Samah Shihadi’s selected works for, Traces of The Land, draw from the artist’s personal narratives and her engagement with the physical space and natural environment as a site of connection with notions of the home, family and collective identity.

     

    The landscape is a backdrop upon which the concerns of social groups play out and fall in and out of focus with shifts of power, in this sense Shihadi’s natural surroundings are of deep concern to her. Shihadi’s family were farmers and their deep-rooted and powerful connection to the land which Shihadi shares is unleashed through rich symbolic elements. In a series of studies, the cactus or sabre is, for example, employed as a symbol of resilience, indeed, and as a marker of ‘patience’. While in other works her country’s ubiquitous olives speak out to confirm the artist’s cultural identity. Each work selected for Traces of The Land has been painstakingly produced over several months. Shihadi’s work oscillates between classical-figurative realism, which dutifully captures and records that which surrounds her and fantastical surrealism that draws from the artist’s preoccupations with mysticism. Shihadi employs a dramatic approach to hyperrealism sketching using chiaroscuro to form a magical reality which blends both fiction and fantasy. Symbolism - religious, ritualistic, political, and cultural - is interwoven into much of Shihadi’s work, forming complex layers that the viewer must unpack in order to absorb deeper meanings.

  • Samah Shihadi Works

    • Samah Shihadi, Harvest, 2020
      Samah Shihadi, Harvest, 2020
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    • Samah Shihadi, Hiding , 2018
      Samah Shihadi, Hiding , 2018
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    • Samah Shihadi, Home, 2019
      Samah Shihadi, Home, 2019
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    • Samah Shihadi, Landscape, 2019
      Samah Shihadi, Landscape, 2019
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    • Samah Shihadi, Patience (Sabre Series), 2019
      Samah Shihadi, Patience (Sabre Series), 2019
      $ 10,000.00
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    • Samah Shihadi, Resilience (Sabre Series), 2020
      Samah Shihadi, Resilience (Sabre Series), 2020
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    • Samah Shihadi, Sticks and Stones, 2018
      Samah Shihadi, Sticks and Stones, 2018
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    • Samah Shihadi, Tiberias , 2018
      Samah Shihadi, Tiberias , 2018
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