Cultural Foundation

Shaikha Al Mazrou

Artist

b. 1988

Shaikha Al Mazrou (b. 1988, UAE) is among the most dynamic Emirati artists of her generation. Her sculptural practice investigates materiality and tension, exploring the interplay between form, colour and physical space through an intuitive understanding of materials and their properties. Borrowing formally from minimalism and intellectually from conceptual art, and drawing on Modernist and Bauhaus figures such as Paul Klee, Carl Andre and Wassily Kandinsky, she combines industrial materials such as steel and copper with geometric abstraction and colour theory to create works that emphasise weight, balance and gravity. Al Mazrou received her MFA from Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London, in 2014, where she was awarded the MFA Student Prize, having previously studied at the College of Fine Arts and Design, University of Sharjah, where she later taught sculpture. She is a visiting Assistant Professor at NYU Abu Dhabi. She has presented major public works at Frieze Sculpture, Desert X AlUla, Expo 2020 Dubai and Manar Abu Dhabi, and her work is held in collections including Art Jameel, the Dubai Collection, the Royal Commission for AlUla and the Columbus Museum of Art.