ARTIST BIO
Sara Al Sulaimani (b. 1994) is an interdisciplinary visual artist based in Abu Dhabi, UAE, where she creates installations, prints, and mixed media works exploring the intersection of personal memory, cultural heritage, and contemporary identity.
Currently completing her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Zayed University's College of Arts and Creative Enterprises, Al Sulaimani has already began to establish herself in the UAE art scene. Her practice, characterized by innovative material exploration and meditation on memory, has earned her recognition including a recent commission from Abu Dhabi's Department of Culture and Tourism. The work, "Fertile Dunes" (2023-2024), was exhibited at Al Qattara Arts Centre in Al Ain as part of the UAE National Day celebrations.
Al Sulaimani's work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including shows at Rizq Art Intiative, Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, Youth Hub Abu Dhabi, and Zayed University. Alongside her art practice, she serves as a Teaching Assistant at Zayed University's College of Arts and Creative Enterprises and has worked as a Senior Tour-Guide Specialist and Educator for the Abu Dhabi Art Fair.
ARTIST STATEMENT
As an interdisciplinary visual artist, I explore the depths of personal and cultural memory through installations, prints, and mixed media works that serve as meditative investigations into identity formation. My practice emerges from a deep engagement with emotional documentation, where each piece becomes a vessel for examining how individual recollections and cultural heritage interweave to shape contemporary selfhood. Through various media, I create works that function as both a personal archive and a collective touchstone, mapping the territories where individual memory resonates with shared human experience.
In my visual practice, I approach each medium as a terrain to be explored, pushing its boundaries just as I probe the limits of personal recollection. This material investigation manifests in works like "return to me in whispers," where brown paper, oil pastels, and clay combine to deconstruct grief and loss through bird metaphor, and "Solace in sorrow," where cotton, wood, and oil-based ink create a space for contemplating mortality through Islamic teachings. The use of traditional elements in my work - whether through Talli inspired techniques or family recipes documented in laser-cut in aluminum sheets - emerges organically from my lived experience. These cultural touchstones appear as natural extensions of my vocabulary, informing both concept and execution while creating points of connection with viewers' own cultural memories.
My practice transforms deeply personal narratives into universal experiences, inviting viewers to discover their own connections within my individual story. Works like "My mom's pots" transcend their origins as family artifacts to become meditations on personal oral history, cultural preservation, and the universal language of nurture and sustenance. Similarly, "27 Diary Entries" uses personal photographs and writings to explore the universal journey from childhood's protected innocence to adult consciousness. Through my work, I create spaces where viewers can encounter both the specificity of my experience and the broader human themes it illuminates. Each installation, print, or mixed media artwork offers multiple points of entry - from direct personal resonance to appreciation of documentary process to engagement with unexpected materials and forms.
This layered approach allows my work to function simultaneously as personal testimony and collective exploration, suggesting that our most individual memories can serve as bridges to shared understanding.
This ongoing investigation continues to evolve as I explore new materials and techniques, each work building upon previous explorations while opening new pathways for understanding the complex interplay between individual experience and collective memory.