Shaikha Al Mazrou explores space between perception and reality in Abu Dhabi exhibition

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Marble ripples like water, steel folds like paper and heavy industrial materials appear almost weightless. In Shaikha Al Mazrou's sculptures, the familiar properties of everyday…

Marble ripples like water, steel folds like paper and heavy industrial materials appear almost weightless. In Shaikha Al Mazrou's sculptures, the familiar properties of everyday materials become difficult to reconcile with what the eye sees.

These contradictions are central to Two Horizons, her solo exhibition at Abu Dhabi's Cultural Foundation. Bringing together existing works and new commissions, the show explores perception, permanence and the distance between what we see and what we believe to be true.

Writing has long been part of her creative process, although it has largely remained invisible to audiences. She writes poems frequently but hesitates to define them as such, partly because of their personal nature.

The exhibition, which runs until July 18, 2027, took about a year to develop. Curated by Reem Fadda, who worked with co-curators Noor AlMehairbi and Paz Monge and assistant curator Afra Saif Almazrouei, the show unfolds across four chapters in the building's atrium and inner galleries.

Its title reflects Al Mazrou's fascination with the horizon, something she often contemplates while travelling. "I find myself constantly questioning the distance to the horizon," she tells The National. "You can name it longing. You can name it distance. You can name it curiosity."

From a plane window, she observes the changing colours of the sky and the shifting boundaries between land and sea. Although the horizon appears straight, its appearance depends on perspective.

That ambiguity takes physical form in Fragmented Horizons, a new commission of oxidised steel poles that trace an artificial horizon through the building's architecture. Another work, Water Was Never Blue, draws on the cyanometer, an 18th century instrument used to study variations in the colour of the sky.

Al Mazrou questions the assumptions people make about colour and the natural world. Water itself is clear, she says, while blue carries associations beyond its physical appearance.

The relationship between…

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