Maitha Abdalla's Storytelling Invokes Lynch, Dzama, and Emirati Folklore: Maitha Abdalla, who is about to begin her MFA in the U.S. at the highly esteemed CalArts, is having a productive year, with a solo exhibition at Dubai's Tabari Artspace (Scars by Daylight, 2 June–6 September 2021) following her participation at Abu Dhabi

  • While the regulations around the pandemic prevented Abdalla from attending her London opening, she seized the opportunity to activate her...

    While the regulations around the pandemic prevented Abdalla from attending her London opening, she seized the opportunity to activate her latest body of work with a visceral performance that evoked pre-pandemic days.

     

    Visitors lined up against the walls to watch the Emirati artist, sporting a grey featureless mask, engage with Dubai-based artist Camilla Singh in Tabari Artspace. Singh, wearing the sculptural head of an amber-coloured cow, writhed to an amplified hissing sound; whenever Abdalla played the flute, Singh would withdraw, breathing deeply. The atmosphere was primal.

  • The titles of Abdalla's theatrical vignettes point to the beginning of a narrative, yet they don't give everything away.
  • The performance's signifiers resonated with the painting The Silence in Carnivals (2021), which takes up a wall of the gallery....

    The performance's signifiers resonated with the painting The Silence in Carnivals (2021), which takes up a wall of the gallery. In it, the outlines of a naked woman crouching on baby pink tiles appear next to a squatting figure with a bright yellow cow mask, which occupies the centre of the painting. A green silhouette, perched on a small table, appears to play an unknown instrument.

     

    Pink tiles (in physical form) appear inside the gallery as well, in an installation comprising a bathroom wall and floor, a sink on legs, and a photograph of Abdalla, in a pig head this time, guiding a few roosters. The photograph is installed behind a transparent plastic shower curtain, completing the bathroom-like cutout.

     

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