Lawrie Shabibi is pleased to announce its inaugural participation in Art021 Shanghai 2024, presenting a group exhibition featuring artworks by Hamra Abbas (b. 1976, Kuwait), Shaikha Al Mazrou (b. 1988, UAE), Mandy El-Sayegh (b. 1985, Malaysia), Asad Faulwell (b. Idaho, 1982), Driss Ouadahi (b. 1959, Morocco) and Nathaniel Rackowe (b. 1975, UK).
The six artists share a focus on materials and materiality. Sculptors Hamra Abbas and Shaikha Al Mazrou explore the physical properties and cultural significance of their chosen materials. In her work, Abbas includes intricate marble inlays, while also highlighting the geographical origins and historical importance of lapis lazuli. Al Mazrou's sculptures express materiality through an intuitive understanding of physical properties, blending ideas from contemporary art movements focused on formal and material elements. In contrast, painters Mandy El-Sayegh and Asad Faulwell engage with materials through collage, with El-Sayegh incorporating newsprint and found objects, and Faulwell using replicated archival images.
Driss Ouadahi's paintings reflect urban alienation through geometric abstraction, utilizing a palette that evokes natural light to comment on the built environment. Similarly, Nathaniel Rackowe explores themes of space and movement through innovative use of materials, often designed to recreate the experience of navigating the city around us.
Hamra Abbas' wall sculptures, inspired by photographs she has taken on her travels, harnesses her vision to create intricate studies in marble inlay. Drawing attention to the geographical origins of Lapis lazuli, particularly in Badakhshan, Afghanistan, Abbas investigates its historical significance and sheds light on its utilization in the history of art, unraveling its cultural and artistic implications. Similarly, Shaikha Al Mazrou’s sculptural experimentations and investigations are expressions of materiality. Her sculptures are partially inspired by the properties and possibilities of folded and creased paper, transmuted into stainless steel. Inflated and folded, they resemble giant displays of origami, the shapes of which are drawn from small-scale paper prototypes created by the artist.
Mandy El-Sayegh’s practice draws from autobiographical Chinese and Palestinian symbols and motifs, alongside popular visual cultural materials and newsprint, employing the studio art of bricolage to create new meaning. Asad Faulwell's abstract works touch on the universal themes of nature, the cosmos, and impermanence, utilizing imagery that references both natural and cosmic forms as well as spiritual traditions.
Driss Ouadahi and Nathaniel Rackowe both explore the interplay between urban and natural environments in their work. Ouadahi captures urban alienation through stark modernist public housing and underground passageways, creating paradoxical beauty while addressing geometric abstraction and transparency. On the other hand, Rackowe’s wall sculptures, made from aluminum honeycomb GRP sheets layered with dichroic film, manipulate light perception. His recent work emphasizes the relationship between rural and built environments in London, highlighting natural light, reflection, and intricate surfaces that merge the two realms.
