10 Years Later (2018)
A celebration of a decade of art and design with works by 16 leading artists and designers from the Tashkeel community.
Ammar Al Attar
‘The Auctions’ is a photoessay documenting the animal auctions in the UAE for goats, camels, fish and birds. His approach is inspired by Kristen Lubben (Thames & Hudson, 2017); a classical way of showing the basics of selecting and editing photos for printing.
Foundation of Love (2018) by Azza Al QubaisiTashkeel
Azza Al Qubaisi, Foundation of Love. 2018.
A pre-oil material that was considered the main fabric of life for the people of this region (palm tree), with a vital part of our identity (the Arabic alphabet) is incorporated in this sculptural piece.
The sculpture base is shaped as the Arabic word (love) with lines inspired by the desert curves and sand dune patterns.
The sculptures rises above using a palm tree trunk shape (‘kurab’) – the part that connects with the branches.
Comprising multiple sizes and varieties of steel, the work contains inspirational elements of patterns and Arabic letters.
eL Seed
The piece, which simply reads توازن (balance) measures 120cm in length but stands on a single point. eL Seed presented a metaphor for his entire practice. “It is a kind of allegory for the reconciliation of my identity, of my cultures and my origins,” he says.
This is Personal (2018) by Hamdan Buti Al ShamsiTashkeel
Hamdan Buti Al Shamsi, This is Personal. 2018.
Al Shamsi turned to collage as a way of exploring how the nostalgic ephemeralities of the past are shaping who we are; how pieces of personhood can come together to create intriguing debates about what we know about ourselves, what we decide to show and what others see.
This new work is an extension of the series Al Shamsi first began in 2014. In the past, the form of communication between people was limited to writing and letters. Today, they are mainly used for junk mail, bank statements, notifications and bills.
Through this series, Al Shamsi depicts these emotions through a random form of collage taken from newspapers and magazines – a magical word coming to life, pouring out of envelopes.
Maitha Demithan
The portrait explores the relationship between animal and human, portrayed through the poetry of Emirati culture, where a beautiful woman is often described as a ‘gazelle’. The work is a combination of scanography, photography and drawing.
Ruben Sanchez
Sanchez tried to avoid traditional formats by experimenting with different surfaces (reclaimed wood, traffic signs, resin, cardboard). Connectivity, coexistence and the unknown functions of our inner world are still within Sanchez's main subjects.
The work draws on a creative tension between geometric abstraction, derived from Bauhaus, Letterist, Futurist and Cubist movements, and the sinuous characteristics of Arabic calligraphy scripts. By using these traditional calligraphic forms as a point of departure, Shawkat's works take calligraphy to a new level and direction – liberating Arabic calligraphy from its textual constraints and context to a more visual form, allowing the work to exist purely for the sake of forms and rhythms.
