Green house: Interior yet Exterior, Manmade yet Natural by Shaikha Al Mazrou consisted of six free standing, glass structures arranged in a systematic form, coated in gradients of different shades of green, from light to dark – forming a greenhouse-like structure.

Rather than plant the garden, Al Mazrou drew on regular themes in her practice to construct a light-filled, segmented greenhouse over the plot. The large-scale structure played on dichotomies of interior/exterior, manmade/natural, creation/destruction, containment/constriction, and transition/reflection. The greenhouse was a metaphor of human intervention into nature and systems. The absence of vegetation is reflected in the colour and form of the glass.

About Shaikha Al Mazrou  

Shaikha Al Mazrou’s sculptural experimentations and investigations are expressions of materiality – articulations of tension, the interplay between form and content, as well as an intuitive, keenly felt understanding of materials and their physical properties. She combines and evolves ideas from contemporary artistic movements similarly pre-occupied with formal and material elements – from colour theory to geometric abstraction. Deeply studied, her works resonate richly with the history of sculpture, abstraction and contemporary art, while always keeping a tight conceptual and physical focus on the formal considerations manifested in her investigative practice.  Composed of simple gestures, each work is poised at a point of harmony, or else caught in a precarious moment of tension. Her sculptural forms are refined distillations of relentless experimentation, a playful yet rigorous testing that embraces material essence and conceptual compression, formal representation and abstract articulation.

Al Mazrou gained her Bachelor’s from the University of Sharjah before going on to receive her Master’s from Chelsea College of Fine Art, University of the Arts, London. She has taken part in residency programmes at the Delfina Foundation in London in collaboration with Tashkeel and in Bastakiya, Dubai with Dubai Culture and Arts Authority. In 2014, Al Mazrou was one of five international artists commissioned by the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture to produce a public artwork at the Jalila Cultural Centre for Children in Dubai as part of ‘Make Art Possible’. Al Mazrou now teaches at the University of Sharjah as a sculpture lecturer.