Three new digital works from Shurooq Amin’s 2022-2024 A Woman Of Importance series will be debuted at Art Dubai Digital alongside their physical counterparts and sold as ‘phygital’ pairs in the artist’s, and MakersPlace’s, first official collaboration with globally renowned Leila Heller Gallery.
Since its establishment four decades ago, Leila Heller Gallery, with locations in both New York and Dubai, has gained worldwide recognition as a pioneer in promoting creative dialogue and exchange between Western artists and Middle Eastern, Central and Southeast Asian artists. The partnership between the gallery, the artist and MakersPlace was forged by Senior Director Jessiva Marinaro, formerly Heller’s Director of Sales in New York.
Amin’s series title is a twist on Oscar Wilde’s play A Woman Of No Importance. Amin takes over from Wilde’s upper class satire that explored gender equality and social hypocrisy, and creates a female protagonist that is reclaiming her power from the patriarchy and her cultural past. Utilizing specific patriarchal “weapons” – a knife, a gun – as well as exclusively masculine motifs – the Iqal (a black cord, worn doubled, used to keep the traditional Khaleeji qutra, or headdress, stable on a man’s head) – Amin tackles socio-political issues and portrays the woman using those very same icons to symbolically reverse history into HERstory.
There is a slight affectionate undertone in all the works, towards a history forged by men, but kept alive by women, existing because of women, flourishing thanks to women. And there is a view of women empowerment that is evidently powerful and confident, yet decidedly feminine and sensual…always breaking stereotypes and smashing ceilings.
