São Paulo – Brazilian visual artist Elizabeth Dorazio is opening her first exhibition in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where she current lives. Symphoniae, featuring wall sculptures made from handicraft by local Bedouin women, opens this Thursday (7) and runs until June 23 at the Art Gallery of the New York University in Abu Dhabi (NYUAD Art Gallery), free of charge, from 3 pm to 10 pm.
In an interview via email, Dorazio talked about her most recent work and the influence from the Arab country in the pieces in exhibition. “When I arrived in the UAE, I tried to understand, carefully, what place was this in which I found myself. In my research, I got to know the handicraft center, where Bedouin women work with different handicraft techniques. Since then, I have been at the place dozens of times and, sewing the Al-Khous (a weaving technique with palm leaves) to my paintings, I plan to create a dialogue.”
Symphoniae, in Greek, means harmony or sound harmony. The work series is based on the idea of creating harmony from disparity. Tempera painting images blend with techniques from the Al-Khous palm leaves weaving, done by Bedouin women from the Arab region, which run through all of the work as a spiral.
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The artist considers herself a foreigner in the world, having lived in Germany for 14 years and now in the UAE, and says that she moved to the Arab country for personal reasons. “I consider the biography of an artist less important than their oeuvre,” she explains. “An artist can develop their work anywhere in the world; the important thing is that I follow my artistic process wherever I am.”
Regarding the UAE, the artist says that 80% of the population is made up of foreigners like herself. “This is a multi-cultural place, with a population that comes from around the world, thus to come from this or that country doesn’t make much difference. Living here is nice, I like it,” she concludes.
For further information, visit the gallery’s and the artist’s websites.
Quick info:
Symphoniae – Elizabeth Dorazio
NYU Art Gallery – Abu Dhabi
June 7 to 23, 2018
Saturday to Thursday, from 3 pm to 10 pm
Free admission
Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
