Lawrie Shabibi is pleased to return to the 2024 edition of Art Basel Hong Kong with a solo presentation of works by Emirati artist Shaikha Al Mazrou. The presentation develops the forms and language of her practice, extending her investigations into materiality, tension and the interplay between structure and content.
Considered to be among the most dynamic and promising Arab artists of her generation, Al Mazrou’s sculptural experimentations and investigations are expressions of materiality—articulations of tension and the interplay between form and content as well as an intuitive, keenly felt understanding of materials and their physical properties. Throughout her practice she combines and evolves ideas from contemporary artistic movements similarly preoccupied with formal and material elements, from colour theory to geometric abstraction.
For Art Basel Hong Kong the artist has developed experimentations first presented in her gallery show ‘Dwelling in the Gap’ (14 November 2022 – 5 January 2023). In this series the artist continues to reflect on the supple and fine properties of paper, folding and creasing them into various shapes and forms. These coloured delicate prototypes are then transmuted into larger scale stainless-steel sculptures that are wet coated in vivid colours. The sculptures are all physically produced by the artist in manufacturing workshops throughout the industrial zones of the United Arab Emirates. In these unassuming places, shapes from stainless steel are cut, welded, folded and inflated—a process that entails a combination of chance encounter and precision by the artist. The flat and rounded surfaces, and rising and descending folds, resemble giant displays of origami. Betraying the function and fixed property of the material, their vibrant colours and forms lend them an element of playfulness and surprise.
Al Mazrou's art practice draws heavily from the history of art, particularly minimalism and conceptual art, while also being influenced by artists like Paul Klee, Carle Andre, and Wassily Kandinsky from the Modernist and Bauhaus Movements. She utilises minimalism's formal aspects to explore contemporary interests in materiality, blending ideas from various artistic movements such as colour theory and geometric abstraction.
