Gulf News published Tessy Koshy's feature Almaha Jaralla's solo exhibition is about recreating memories on canvas on 4 July 2023, a visit to Seham, the Emirati artist's solo exhibition at Tabari in DIFC, on view until September 2023. Koshy begins with a discovery: a year earlier, Jaralla came across a neatly labelled family album at the Abu Dhabi home of her grandaunt Seham, its pink toned images of beach picnics, desert drives and family portraits taken on a Fujifilm camera in the 1980s.
The album revealed the social dynamics and topography of old Abu Dhabi, and Jaralla set out to capture these memories in a series of mixed media works. The gallery was converted into a living room of the era, with a pastel majlis, floral wallpaper and a table displaying the sepia toned photographs. Koshy describes paintings such as Old Corniche, showing Seham and her friends on an evening out with their children, and Al Shelaylah, a family picnic, and a muted mauve painting of Al Maqta Bridge, built in 1968 to connect Abu Dhabi Island to the mainland. Some canvases are mounted with mawaaz, a traditional men's garment from Yemen, honouring her Yemeni heritage. "When I was born, Abu Dhabi was already a bustling city," Jaralla says.
Almaha Jaralla holds a BFA in visual arts from Zayed University. Working predominantly in pigment on textile, she restages everyday scenes of Gulf life. She is represented by Tabari.
