Louvre Abu Dhabi, in collaboration with the renowned Swiss watchmaking brand Richard Mille, has just opened the fourth edition of Art Here 2024. This annual exhibition is a platform for showcasing talent from the Gulf and, for the first time this year, North Africa, empowering artists to explore their creative vision under the theme: Awakenings. Sarah Almehairi is an artist and poet from Abu Dhabi, who uses a poetic approach to her abstract art. “I took the theme of awakenings in the sense of openness,” she explained of her piece Shared Motion. The exhibition will be open to the public from September 20th and runs until December.
In the stillness of the sea, there is motion.
In the stillness of the air, there is a motion.
Even in the intangibility of our speech, there is still
motion to be felt.
Through the lens of translation, Shared Motion presents the word “wind” within the four languages of Arabic, Farsi, Hindi and Urdu. Reflecting on the linguistic landscape of the region surrounding the Arabian Sea, words became similarly formed, including those tied to nature. Gestures are performed in sync, eventually overlapping until they meld into one, sharing that motion collectively; presenting language beyond its known form.
Wind, as a messenger,
The sea, as a conduit,
Maritime trade, as an intermediary
each a current influencing the course of exploration and aiding the spread of languages, existing in a symbiotic relationship, each influencing the other in a continuous cycle of interaction.
Shared Motion is a symbol of the region’s transformation. Languages, just like the wind, travel across vast distances shaping routes and landscapes. Languages, like the seas, stretch out endlessly, seemingly without limits, as a symbol of an awakening awaiting in its flow. In these elements, capturing change is subtle; however, their movements shapes our present day and through this work, the interplay of language, culture, and history of this region is seen through a new perspective.
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Sarah Almehairi is an artist and poet whose overarching body of work unfolds a discourse on themes of materiality, systems and interrelations, and language through the intuitive and poetic examination of narrative and abstraction. By engaging with geometric forms, she extracts and defines a structural language read time and time again to suggest a form other than its own – a map, a sentence, a puzzle piece. Through the process, they are broken down, built, and reassembled as continuous iterations of themselves. These elements towards telling a story are not so explicit, lines and layers are used throughout her pieces as a means of exploring clarity and organization of collected information. Working primarily with investigative range of media, she explores the push and pull of material to evoke a story that both conceals and reveals itself.
Sarah Almehairi lives and works in Abu Dhabi. She received her Bachelor of Art and Art History from NYU Abu Dhabi. She is also the co-founder of JARA Collective.
