Explorations of time and notions of rigor and fragility

Afra Al Dhaheri is an Emirati artist whose work is informed by her upbringing in Abu Dhabi and the UAE. Her artistic practice spans various mediums, including mixed media, sculpture, drawing, painting, installation, photography, and printmaking, and is characterized by explorations of time and adaptation, as well as notions of rigor and fragility.

Born in 1988 in Abu Dhabi, Al Dhaheri earned her MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in the United States in 2017. She completed residencies with The Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship, in partnership with the Rhode Island School of Design in 2014, and at Porthmeor Studios in St. Ives, Cornwall, UK, in 2019. She currently works as an Assistant Professor in Visual Arts at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi.

Al Dhaheri’s unique vocabulary of references shapes her approach to each experiment, with repetition serving as both a method for extending time and a means of fully experiencing or realizing each stage of a work. Her solo exhibitions include Split Ends at the Green Art Gallery in Dubai, UAE (2021) and Inevitable Ephemera at the T + H Gallery in Boston, USA (2016). Her work has also been featured in several group exhibitions, including Beyond: Emerging Artists at Cromwell Place in London, UK (2021), Conscious Becoming at Tatjana Pieters in Ghent, Belgium (2021), and Beyond: Emerging Artist at Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi, UAE (2020). Other exhibitions include From Within in Riyadh, KSA (2019), Avoid Bad Dreams at the Green Art Gallery in Dubai, UAE (2019), Barcelona to Abu Dhabi at Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi, UAE (2018), and Emirati Expressions at Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi, UAE (2011 and 2015).