فير زملر غاليري Sfeir-Semler Gallery

Dana Awartani

Dana Awartani (b. 1987, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, of Palestinian descent) engages in critical and contemporary reinterpretations of the forms, techniques, concepts and spatial constructs that shape Middle Eastern culture. Steeped in a multitude of historical references, especially Islamic and Arab art-making traditions, Awartani’s practice straddles continuity and innovation, aesthetic experimentation and social relevance. Spanning painting, sculpture, performance and installation, Awartani’s commitment to historically situated and locally sourced materials lends a rare sensitivity to urgent political concerns of gender, healing, cultural destruction and sustainability. Consistent throughout the artist’s work has been her philosophical elaboration of geometric patterns as an alternative genealogy of abstraction. Read more

Awartani lives and works between New York and Jeddah. She has had solo exhibitions at Arnolfini, UK (2025); the Samstag Museum of Art, Australia (2024); Maraya Art Centre, UAE (2018); and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, USA (2017). Her works have also been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including most recently Bukhara Biennial, Uzbekistan (2025); Kunsthaus Graz, Austria (2025); La Biennale di Venezia, Italy (2024); Sharjah Biennale 15, UAE (2023); Louvre Abu Dhabi, UAE (2022); Lyon Biennale, France (2022); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, USA (2022); Desert X Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia (2022); C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía, Spain (2022); Diriyah Biennale, Saudi Arabia (2021); BNKR, Germany (2021); British Museum, UK (2021); NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Singapore (2020); Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Spain (2020); and Pera Museum, Turkey (2020).

Dana Awartani has been shortlisted for the High Line Plinth Commission, New York (2024), Richard Mille Prize, Louvre Abu Dhabi (2022) and was the recipient of the National Cultural Award by the Ministry of Culture of Saudi Arabia (2021); the Instituto Sacatar Residency Award, Sesc_Videobrasil (2020); and has been an artist in residence at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (2020) and at Delfina Foundation, London, UK (2015).

I Went Away and Forgot You, 2017, single-channel video, 22'
1/6Dana Awartani, I Went Away and Forgot You. A While Ago I Remembered. I Remembered Iʼd Forgotten You. I Was Dreaming, 2017, single-channel video, 22 min (still)
Let me mend your broken bones #12, 2024, darning on medicinally dyed silk, typewriter on paper, 16 pieces (36 cm x 27 cm each)
2/6Dana Awartani, Let me mend your broken bones 12, 27, 2024, darning on medicinally dyed silk, typewriter on paper, 16 pieces, 36 × 27 cm, each
Standing by the Ruins, 2024, compressed earth, hand-tinted with natural pigments, dimensions variable
3/6Dana Awartani, Standing by the Ruins II, 2024, compressed earth, hand-tinted with natural pigments, dimensions variable
Come, let me heal your wounds. Let me mend your broken bones, 2025, Darned silk, 136 x 556 cm
4/6Dana Awartani, Come, let me heal your wounds. Let me mend your broken bones, 2025, darned silk, 136 × 556 cm
When the dust of conflict settles, 2025, hand carving on Jerashi-stone, 45 × 40 × 40 cm
5/6Dana Awartani, When the dust of conflict settles, 2025, hand carving on Jerashi-stone, 40 × 40 × 30 cm
6/6Dana Awartani, When the dust of conflict settles, 2025, gouache and walnut ink on handmade cotton paper, 35 × 48 cm

Selected Press

Gallery Exhibitions

Exhibitions Beyond

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2026

  • May your tears never dry, you who weep over stones, Saudi Pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (forthcoming)

2025

  • Dana Awartani: Standing by the Ruins, Towner Eastbourne, Eastbourne, UK

  • Dana Awartani: Standing by the ruins, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK

2024

  • Standing by the Ruins, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany

  • Dana Awartani, Samstag Museum of Art, University of South Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

2018

  • The Silence Between Us, Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah, UAE

2017

  • Detroit Affinities: Dana Awartani, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit, USA

Selected Group Exhibitions

2026

  • Arduna, Our Land, Contemporary Art Museum in AlUla, in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou and the French Agency for AlUla Development, AlUla, Saudi Arabia

2025

  • Shared Holy Spaces, Villa Medici, Rome, Italy

  • Unseen Futures to Come, Kunsthaus Graz, Graz, Austria

  • Recipes for Broken Hearts, Inaugural Bukhara Biennial, Bukhara, Uzbekistan

  • The Shade, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Karantina, Beirut, Lebanon

  • True Colours: Textiles, Movement, Colours and Identity, MAXXI L’Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy

  • ERASURE, Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex, UK

2024

  • Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy 

  • The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland, Australia 

  • Northern Alps Art Art Festival, Omachi City, Nagano Prefecture, Japan 

  • Manifesta 15, Barcelona, Spain 

  • The High Line Plinth, New York, USA

  • After Rain, Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

2023

  • In the Heart of Another Country: The Diasporic Imagination in the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE

  • Thinking Historically in the Present, Sharjah Biennale 15, Sharjah, UAE

  • Matter as Actor, Lisson Gallery, London, UK

2022

  • Art Here, Richard Mille Art Prize, Louvre Abu Dhabi, UAE 

  • Constellations: Global Reflection, G20, Bali, Indonesia 

  • Manifesto of Fragility, Lyon Biennale, Lyon, France 

  • Put It This Way, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, USA

  • Stories of Paper, Louvre Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE 

  • Sarab, Desert X Al-Ula, Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia 

  • Abundant Futures, C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalicía, Córdoba, Spain

2021

  • Feeling the Stones, The Diriyah Biennale Foundation, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 

  • The Architecture of Transformation, BNKR, Munich, Germany 

  • Reflections: Contemporary Art of the Middle East & North Africa, The British Museum, London, UK

  • When in Doubt, Go to a Museum, The City Museum of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia 

  • The Secrets of Alidades, Saudi Art Council, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia 

  • Light Upon Light, Noor Riyadh, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

2020

  • Loose Leaves, Process, materials, sounds from Listen to my words, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Singapore 

  • Black Box, In the Beginning: Media Art and History, Hirshhorn Museum, Online exhibition 

  • st_age, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Online exhibition 

  • How to Tread Lightly, st_age expanded, an exhibition, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain 

  • Miniature 2.0, Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey

2019

  • Imagined Communities, Contemporary Art Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil, Sao Paolo, Brazil 

  • An Instant Before the World, Rabat Biennale, Rabat, Morocco 

  • Zamakan, Ithra, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

2018

  • Infinite Present: Revelations from Islamic Design in Contemporary Art, Cambridge Arts Gallery 344, Cambridge, USA

  • Unsettlement, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne, Australia

2017

  • Exhibition 1, Institute of Arab and Islamic Art, New York, USA

  • Safar, 21,39, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

  • JIWA, Jakarta Biennale, Jakarta, Indonesia 

  • Bridges, United Nations, New York, USA

  • Cities of Conviction, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake, USA

  • Negotiating Space, The Mosaic Rooms, London, UK

2016

  • Forming in the Pupil of an Eye, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, India

  • Take Me [I’m Yours], Jewish Museum, New York, USA

  • For An Image, Faster Than Light , Yinchuan Biennale, Museum of Contemporary Art, Yinchuan, China

  • GENERA#ION: Contemporary Art from Saudi Arabia, Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, USA

  • NOT NEW NOW, Marrakech Biennale, Marrakech, Morocco

2015

  • “Unity” A Quincy House Art Exhibition, U.S Embassy, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  • Reinventing the Vernacular, Al Okaz village, Asir, Saudi Arabia

2014

  • The Language of Human Consciousness, Athr Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

  • 21,39, Moallaqat, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

2013

  • Illumination: The Light of Tradition, Linlithgow, Scotland

  • Parallel Lines, Athr Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

  • Show of Faith, Qatara Center, Doha, Qatar

  • Rhizoma, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy

  • Mostly Visible, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Awards

2024

  • Dia-Al-Azzawi Prize for Public Art - Shortlisted

2022

  • Richard Mille Art Prize - Abu Dhabi Louvre - Shortlisted

2021

  • Recipient of the National Cultural Award by the Ministry of Culture of Saudi Arabia

2020

  • Instituto Sacatar Residency Award, 21st Contemporary Art Biennial Sesc_ Videobrasil

Residencies

2020

  • Artists-in-Residence: NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Singapore

2015

  • Artist in Residence: Delfina Foundation, London, UK

Public Collections

Education

2012

  • Manuscript Illumination Apprenticeship, Istanbul, Turkey

2011

  • Masters Degree in Traditional Arts; The Prices School of Traditional Arts, London, United Kingdom

2009

  • Bachelorette Degree in Fine Arts; Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, London, United Kingdom

2006

  • Foundation Degree in Art and Design, Byam Shaw School of Art, Central Saint Martin’s, London, United Kingdom