Maitha Hamdan

This is my journey of unlearning. Unlearning the things I learned, unlearning the love I got, unlearning the rituals I did. This is my journey of understanding life, love, history, and religion and performing it through art, films, and performances. This is my journey of using the earth and what you left to make and state my art, thoughts, and understanding.

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The clothes that hang on Maitha Hamdan’s laundry line occupy a gradient of pattern and color that moves towards white. This comes from the practice of bleaching clothes before dye is applied to determine if the quality of fabric will hold. The idea began when the artist researched the sources of garden designs and non-indigenous floral patterns on traditional dress in the UAE that didn’t reflect the local environment but rather, the nature in south and southeast Asian countries, where these textiles were brought in due to trade between the Gulf and parts of Asia.

The minimalism of Hamdan’s work belies its spiritual undertones, namely, notions of the straight path (referenced in the Qur’an), the purity of a blank state and symbols of good deeds. The line can be seen as an ascension but also, if the title is to be taken literally, a return to where we were before. It calls into question the linear progression of time.

For Maitha Hamdan, textiles are the carrier of meaning, ritual and memory. In her latest work, She treats the interior as exterior by offering a poem in black chalk on the wall, in the manner of confessional texts left on bathroom doors as graffiti.

Maitha Hamdan is a multidisciplinary artist who explores her art through different mediums such as performances and art installation. Maitha has found that dealing with fabric and textiles is the common foundation of her artworks and performances. They narrate and tell the stories faced within social boundaries and religion. Maitha is also a filmmaker and performer who writes creatively in the Arabic language.