On The Move: Art as Process

Process--the “how” of artmaking--is one of the most mercurial aspects of creative production. Finding a process that works is the cornerstone of productivity; yet artists struggle to identify it, articulate it, and reflect on it. Historically, the question that critics and audiences love to ask of artists—“how did you make this?”—has been a carefully guarded mystery, and is difficult to answer. The artistic process often verges far from transparency, consistency, and linearity, and any question of “how” often opens onto another complex question of intentionality--the “why” of artmaking.

This exhibition excavates the process of process, asking how artworks evolve before they reach a “finished” state. The five participating artists have reflected on their own processes of making, revealing an understanding of process that is as much about problem finding as it is problem solving. For each person, process involves negotiating between idea and material; at times, it is the process itself that becomes the finished work. A leitmotif linking their diverse practices is a curiosity about the time it takes to produce: from inspiration, to reiteration, to failure and resolution. Taken together, the works demonstrate perhaps the most important thing about a process: to trust it.
The exhibition will include the activation of exhibited elements, and invite conversations about the process between the artists and the broader creative community in the UAE.

Participating artists: Ali Al Ali, Armin Hosseini, Sulafa Mohammed, Elham Shafaei, and Huma Shoaib.

— Dr. Christianna Bonin

About the Artists

Armin Hosseini

Armin is an Iranian artist born in 1993 in the UAE. As his inspiration was taken from origami, Armin began to push the limits of what can be done with cardboard to create more advanced pieces. He likes to always push boundaries, test the limits, and break rules as he often finds them restricting the creative process; especially when trying to create something new. So he began by cutting the cardboard and gluing pieces together in addition to folding, which is not done in origami, to create the resulting shapes. He has also started experimenting with creating abstract geometric 3-dimensional shapes that while might seem random, are derived from the mathematics in geometry, fusing with his background in engineering.

Elham Shafaei

Elham Shafaei was born in Iran in 1983. She earned her bachelor’s degree in art from the School of Arts at the University of Science and Culture in Tehran. In 2010, she moved to Malaysia, where she completed an M.A. (Fine Arts) in Papermaking and a Ph.D. (Fine Arts) in Painting, focusing on the role of melancholia in creative life. Elham is an internationally exhibiting artist and curator. She is the Co-Founder and Co-Editor of ContemporaryIdentities, an international online art magazine. Additionally, she founded i.e. Art Projects, an online art foundation that integrates management, marketing, and planning with audience and community engagement to build connections between art, artists, and audiences.

Huma Shoaib

Huma Shoaib is a Dubai-based artist of Pakistani origin, raised in Saudi Arabia. Having a deep connection with diverse cultures embeds richly in her practice. She is a graduate of the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan. Represented by XVA Gallery and Morrow Collective, she has also shown successfully with galleries like The Foundry Downtown, Tashkeel in Dubai, and Art Soch Contemporary in Lahore Pakistan, and with the curator/writer Anna Seaman. In 2023 she was endorsed by Saatchi Art’s curator Rebecca Wilson and was selected to be the featured artist for Saatchi Art.

Sulafa Mohammed

Sulafa Mohammed is an Emirati artist exploring the intersection between craft, crochet, numbers, and herself. Her practice surrounds introspective themes of self-reflection in her daily life and how they can result in meaningful, intricate artworks using the foundation of crochet. She is currently the Managing Partner for her family’s business, where numbers have a cold and calculative personality within the various metrics of commerce. Given the meditative mindset of crochet, it became crucial for her to recontextualize these numbers–embracing a conscious approach to recording, decoding, and ‘humanizing’ these aspects of her experiences. These numbers define the parameters with which she creates her sculptures, allowing everyday chance to play a key role in determining the form of the final works.

Ali Al Ali

Born in 1989, Ali Al Ali has a diverse background that has led him to pursue a career in jewelry design and visual art. After a successful 10-year career as an Emirates pilot, he earned a High Diploma in Aviation Sciences from Emirates Airline University in 2013. However, driven by his passion, he decided to enroll as a student at Dubai Design Academy in 2021, where he earned a professional designer certificate from HRD. In 2022, Ali joined the Emirates Fine Art Society and also pursued his interest in printmaking collagraph artwork as a student at Sharjah Art Institute. His unique and innovative jewelry designs have garnered recognition, including two Ebdaa Awards where he placed first in the pearl design category and second in Emirati design.

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