Afra Al Dhaheri: Sculpting Time and Change through Art

Afra Al Dhaheri is one of the better-known Emirati artists who uses her practice to address notions of time, fragility, and adaptability-concepts inextricably linked to how she grew up in the midst of very rapid changes in Abu Dhabi and the UAE. Sculpture, painting, and photography are some of the genres Afra Al Dhaheri employs to set up telling narratives that take viewers through every stage of her artistic process. Her peculiarity in repetition is just that eccentric trait of an individual which lets her not only stretch time within her work but also involves her rather closely in every stage of her creation.

Afra Al Dhaheri was born in Abu Dhabi, UAE, in 1988. She is one of the thriving voices within Emirati contemporary art. A lot of her meditative and many times experimental work reflects upon rapid transformations she has grown up with within the UAE. The rapid change in her motherland is at the core of her practice and is, therefore, constituted through the core ideas that support her thoughts on time, adaptation, and fragility. Using a wide range of media-sculpture, drawing, painting, photography, and printmaking-the works by Al Dhaheri challenge common perceptions of time and alteration. Her interest in these themes can be argued to have been born during her MFA at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design in the USA, completed in 2017. Much earlier, in 2014, she was an artist in residence under the Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship in collaboration with Rhode Island School of Design. These experiences have importantly shaped her experimental style and thematic focus.

Among the leading methods Afra Al Dhaheri uses in her work is repetition. In the case of Al Dhaheri, repetition works in two different directions: to extend the moment in time for the viewer and to allow her to investigate the profundity and substance of every artistic phase. This is most manifestly evident in the case of her multimedia installations, where the replication of a form or concept at every turn asks the viewer to reconsider what had been at stake. Repetition also functions as one of the tools for the artist to capture evanescent time. In a world where everything is in constant motion-in the UAE, where development is at a fast pace-Al Dhaheri’s work acts like a reminder that one should stop and live the moment. With every repetition of elements in her work, the story lengthens and urges the viewer to get more involved with the hidden message.

Afra Al Dhaheri’s works are also an expression of her personal experience of adaptation, perhaps the most critical common thread in her work. Leveraging her practice of living in a time when immense cultural and architectural changes occurred in this region, she tells and navigates tugging forces between the old and the new. Rigid forms represent the rigor and permanence of tradition, while fragile materials symbolize the fragile and transient present moment. A perpetual dance between these two opposed forces is characteristic of her work. Fragility and adaptation allow Al Dhaheri’s works to capture nuanced experiences defined by people living within rapidly changing environments. The vulnerability appearing in her work is both personal and universal, reflecting the fragility of human experience in an ever-changing world.

Afra Al Dhaheri has had several important exhibitions of her work, both locally and internationally. Her solo shows include “Split Ends” at the Green Art Gallery in Dubai, 2021; “Inevitable Ephemera” presented by T+H Gallery, Boston, USA, 2016. These shows have been emblematic of her skill in reimagining such complexly philosophical and conceptual themes as visually engaging art. The group exhibitions she was a part of further and firmly established her standing among the avant-garde artists of her time. Group shows among others include “Beyond: Emerging Artists” at Cromwell Place in London in 2021 and Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi in 2020, where her work is put in relation to other emerging artists. These exhibitions allow viewers to engage with an investigation of adaptation, memory, and identity within the UAE’s ever-changing landscape.