The solo exhibition ‘Inner Sanctuary’ explores the artist’s own intimate personal space May 2022 -Zawyeh Gallery has announced the opening of a new exhibition at Alserkal Avenue, Dubai titled Inner Sanctuary by the young Palestinian artist Rana Samara.
Opening on 22 May, the exhibition showcases a body of work focusing on the exploration of her own intimate space from an emotional perspective. Samara depicts the inside of her world with fine details incorporating daily objects and furnishing. She explores her personal space; the lounge, the bedroom, the corners in her favorite café and other familiar places. Samara uses colors, motifs, and shapes to convey her sentiments showing her content, calmness, anxiety, or frustration, even though she leaves out one central aspect: humans. Her series is a bid to capture traces of precious moments that people leave behind. Her paintings are clearly influenced by her deep sentiments towards those places.
The work is executed using the artist’s unique signature of charming vibrant colors and stunning decorative motifs. The exhibition presents large paintings as well as small sized ones on the contrary to her previous exhibitions which consisted of large scale canvases.
Samara is a Palestinian artist who was born in Jerusalem. Her previous project, Intimate Space, explored societal norms, sexuality, gender roles and other factors of daily lives of women who reside in overcrowded refugee camps and rural communities in Palestine. In this project, she turns the focus inwards towards her own experience.
Samara has participated in a number of exhibitions and art fairs including Contemporary Istanbul (2019), Art Dubai (2017 & 2019) and Beirut Art Fair (2017).
The exhibition runs until 28 August 2022 daily from 11 am – 7 pm
About the Artist
Rana Samara (born in 1985, Jerusalem) is a Palestinian artist and a graduate of the International Art Academy, Ramallah (2015). Samara grew up in a typical Palestinian family. In her words: “I spent most of my childhood and teenage years observing and analyzing social and gender relations. I came to understand how precious, yet also suffocating women’s roles as carers and nurturers can be.”
Samara’s project – Intimate Space – explores societal norms, sexuality, gender roles, and other factors associated with modern Palestinian life. Her work focuses on the less obvious factors that underpin the daily lives of women who reside in overcrowded refugee camps and rural communities – women whose lives continue to be blighted both by conservative traditions and the exigencies of life under occupation.
Focusing on marital intimacy, Samara demystifies many social taboos and translates these onto large, bold, and colorful canvases that are both remarkable social statements and beautiful artistic constructs. Frank conversations with women form the backbone of her work that transcends the private space into the realm of the public. Often depicting the aftermath of sexual encounters, Samara’s paintings are remarkable visual metaphors of the lives of Palestinian women existing in restricted environments, cramped and constrained by internal traditions and by external forces.
Samara has participated in a number of exhibitions including Contemporary Istanbul, Turkey, 2019; Art Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2019; Beirut Art Fair, Lebanon, 2017; and Art Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2017. In addition to several local solo exhibitions in Ramallah and Jerusalem.
Discover more work of the Artist
