Shurooq Amin: We'll Build This City on Art and Love

About

Ayyam Gallery London is pleased to announce We’ll Build This City on Art and Love, the solo exhibition of Syrian-Kuwait artist Shurooq Amin. Recognised for her cutting-edge approach to painting, which combines diverse media in the creation of bold portraits, Amin is a prominent figure of the contemporary Kuwaiti art scene. In her latest body of work, the artist explores a wide range of social maladies, from child marriage in war-affected areas to the marginalisation of migrants in the Gulf, and the moral and material ramifications of stalled construction projects such as Silk City, which initially promised the revitalisation of Kuwait’s infrastructure. In addition to her noteworthy career as visual artist, she is widely published and holds a doctorate in Creative Writing and Ekphrasis from Warnborough College, England.

‘We’ll Build This City on Art and Love’ combines a diverse range of mixed media including reclaimed photographs. Exhibiting since the mid 1990s, Amin’s paintings are housed in public and private collections across the world. Her selected solo and group exhibitions include: Ayyam Gallery DIFC, Dubai (2014); Ayyam Gallery Al Quoz, Dubai (2013); Lahd Gallery, London (2011); CAN, New York (2010). In 2013, Amin was awarded the title of ‘Artist of the Year’ by the Arab Woman Awards, Kuwait chapter and was the first female Kuwaiti artist to be auctioned at Christie’s in 2012.

Unique to this exhibition are sombre palimpsest works that bring together significant landmarks from Kuwaiti history, photographic remnants, and charcoal drawings. The build up of layers in the collage works prompts viewers to question the past in relation to the present, to imagine the future as related to the immediate. In covering a range of social issues, referring often to turbulent times and to dark subject matter, in We’ll Build This City on Art and Love Amin’s message is ultimately that of hope. Her central concern being how best to build sustainable relationships, societies, and systems so that the legacy we leave behind is that of strength in place of fracture or stagnation.