Dana Awartani engages in critical and contemporary reinterpretations of the forms, techniques, concepts and spatial constructs that shape Middle Eastern culture. Steeped in a multitude of historical references, especially Islamic and Arab art-making traditions, Awartani’s practice straddles continuity and innovation, aesthetic experimentation and social relevance. Spanning painting, sculpture, performance and installation, Awartani’s commitment to historically situated and locally sourced materials lends a rare sensitivity to urgent political concerns of gender, healing, cultural destruction and sustainability. Consistent throughout the artist’s work has been her philosophical elaboration of geometric patterns as an alternative genealogy of abstraction.
In her ongoing series, ‘Come, let me heal your wounds. Let me mend your broken bones’ (2019-2024) Awartani meditates on themes of sustainability and cultural destruction. The work is composed of naturally dyed silk fabrics, handmade in Kerala in south India, which have been stretched onto frames or draped in a serial manner. The fabrics are saturated with a multitude of natural herbs and spices with specific medicinal functions, but are also spliced and disrupted by tears and holes, which correspond to buildings or locations that have been subjected to sustained violence or outright destruction through war, colonialism or acts of terror. Mending these punctures through a process of darning, Awartani’s work metaphorises possibilities of collective healing while recalling a venerable tradition of repairing and revering objects. Her material choices speak to the ethical and ecological terms of production and embody acts of resistance through the dual emphasis on artisanal production and indigenous knowledges. This approach can be seen in an earlier performative work, ‘I went away and forgot you. A while ago I remembered. I remembered I’d forgotten you. I was dreaming’ (2017), in which she sweeps away a pattern painstakingly created from hand-dyed sand to resemble a traditional tiled floor, seemingly in the name of progress.
Other recent works, including ‘Where Dwellers Lay’ (2022) and ‘When the Dust of Conflict Settles’ (2023), employ the languages of traditional crafts and architecture, revivifying decorative elements and skills considered either lost to time, conflict or technological innovation. Rather than consigning history to ruin or rumour, Awartani restores and conserves it by suggesting future pathways that traverse the same timeless journeys taken by ancestors and artisans past, despite many of those voices having long since been silenced.
Born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 1987 and of Palestinian descent, Dana Awartani lives and works in between New York and Jeddah. She has a BA in Fine Art from Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design Fine Art, London and a Master’s degree in Traditional Arts from The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, London. Dana Awartani has held solo exhibitions at the Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide, Australia (2024); the Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah, UAE (2018); Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit, USA (2017) and Athr Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (2015). Her works have also been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including Venice Biennale, Italy (2024); Sharjah Biennale 15, Sharjah, UAE (2023); Louvre Abu Dhabi, UAE (2022); Lyon Biennale, Lyon, France (2022); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, USA (2022); Desert X Al-Ula, Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia (2022); C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía, Córdoba, Spain (2022); Diriyah Biennale, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (2021); BNKR, Munich, Germany (2021); British Museum, London, UK (2021); NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Singapore (2020); Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain (2020); Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey (2020); Contemporary Art Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil, Sao Paulo, Brazil (2019); Rabat Biennale, Rabat, Morocco (2019); Cambridge Arts Gallery, Cambridge, USA (2018); Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia (2018); Selma Feriani Gallery, Tunisia (2017); Jakarta Biennale, Jakarta, Indonesia (2017); United Nations, New York, USA (2017); Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, USA (2017); The Mosaic Rooms, London, UK (2017); Institute of Arab and Islamic Art, New York, United States (2017); Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, USA (2016); Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, India (2016); Yinchuan Biennale, Museum of Contemporary Art, Yinchuan, China (2016); Jewish Museum, New York, USA (2016); US Embassy, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (2015); Moallaqat, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (2014); Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2013).
Dana Awartani has been shortlisted for the the High Line Plinth Commission, New York (2024), Richard Mille Prize, Louvre Abu Dhabi (2022) and was the recipient of the National Cultural Award by the Ministry of Culture of Saudi Arabia (2021); the Instituto Sacatar Residency Award, Sesc_Videobrasil (2020); and has been an artist in residence at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (2020) and at Delfina Foundation, London, UK (2015).