Afra Al Dhaheri, Stripped away from all constructs, 2018
Cement and charcoal on cotton fabric mesh, 210 x 110 cm
From Within which was inaugurated earlier this month by the Kingdom’s Deputy Minister of Culture Hamid bin Mohammed Fayez, features work by artists from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
The paintings, installations and sculptures deal with the relationship between man and architecture, and how one can affect the other.
Stripped Away from All Constructs by Emirati artist Afra Al-Dhaheri, is a piece of fabric coated in cement that hangs from the wall between two pieces of steel. It explores a romanticised debate of love and hate for the act of demolishing architecture. The cement lines act as a blueprint on the surface of the fabric. The cotton mesh fabric is normally used as reinforcement in construction but, by suspending architectural material from two points and allowing it to drape down as if it were made only of fabric, it becomes an imaginative way of removing a building’s structure.