{"id":113176,"date":"2023-07-03T14:31:47","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T10:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alowais.com\/?p=113176"},"modified":"2023-07-03T14:31:47","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T10:31:47","slug":"emirati-artist-almaha-jaralla-turns-1980s-abu-dhabi-family-life-into-solo-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alowais.com\/en\/emirati-artist-almaha-jaralla-turns-1980s-abu-dhabi-family-life-into-solo-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Emirati artist Almaha Jaralla turns 1980s Abu Dhabi family life into solo show"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sahem exhibition is a journey into the capital’s history via her own personal stories<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Almaha Jaralla\u2019s solo exhibition at\u00a0Tabari Artspace<\/a>\u00a0in the DIFC will feel familiar to anyone who grew up in the Gulf in the 1980s and early ’90s.<\/span><\/p>\n

Titled Seham, the Emirati artist\u2019s showcase is a journey into Abu Dhabi\u2019s history via scenes of family life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI’m using my family to talk about periods of time in Abu Dhabi that a lot of people can relate to,\u201d Jaralla tells\u00a0The National<\/i>. \u201cI was inspired by how everyone was together at that time. As family groups, I think we lost something with social media.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Three sets of majlis-styled sofas surround four matching glass coffee tables in the centre of the gallery, welcoming visitors into the space. On the coffee table, pressed under the glass surface, are a number of family photos \u2013 children playing on a beach, families having a picnic and a portrait of a young boy.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The sofas are ornate and vintage, upholstered in pink textured material with flower-like patterns. They are echoed on the wallpaper of the gallery, which has a slight pink sheen of its own. The works, mid to large-scale oil paintings, hang frameless on the wall and are an accumulation of the setting.<\/span><\/p>\n

It simultaneously feels like stepping into a living room of an ’80s Arab home in the Gulf as well as a study of domestic and familial scenes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a time where you had to see people face to face to ask them about their day,\u201d Jaralla says. \u201cThose aspects I didn’t live through. I’m trying to conceptualise that time. I’m trying to understand the family dynamic of that time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Beker by Almaha Jaralla. Photo: Tabari Artspace<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite being born in 1996, Jaralla found herself drawn to the ’80s.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cThis work is like me having a conversation with my younger dad and trying to conceptualise their time, growing up in Abu Dhabi in the ’80s. That was the inspiration of the curation,” she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jaralla also brings the time period to life through colour, using palates, textures and patterns that were popular at the time. She also uses aged photographs extensively.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jaralla\u2019s great aunt, Seham, eagerly documented her surroundings in the ’80s with a Fuji camera.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted viewers experiencing the work to be inside of that filter by creating this light pink atmosphere,\u201d she says. “Especially with the lights at night, it does feel like you’re inside of a pink or red filter.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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The paintings seamlessly combine pictorial ideas of flatness and space. Figures pose and sit in the space, recalling a stillness similar to the frozen silhouettes we recognise from printed photographs.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, Jarallah\u2019s application of paint, particularly in the background, is lush and free flowing working against the still figures in satisfying harmony.<\/span><\/p>\n

The body of work features personal stories as well as the story of Abu Dhabi coming into its own.<\/span><\/p>\n

One work focuses on Abu Dhabi\u2019s Al Maqtaa Bridge, built in 1968, the first structure to connect the island to the mainland. It’s a subject that connects many of the themes Jaralla is preoccupied with \u2013 the past and present, tradition and modernity, record keeping and nostalgia.<\/span><\/p>\n

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