25.07.1979–?
Ahmed Mater
Ahmed Mater trained as a doctor in Abha but from 1999 also worked at the Al-Meftaha art village, and the X-ray became one of his main images. His work is held by the British Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Centre Pompidou and the Guggenheim. In 2016 a solo exhibition, “Symbolic Cities”, was held in Washington.
Biography
In 2006 the British Museum included Mater’s work “X-Ray 2003” in the exhibition “Word into Art” and later acquired it for its collection. Its author was a twenty-seven-year-old medical student from southern Arabia.
Ahmed Mater was born on 25 July 1979 in Tabuk, a city in north-western Saudi Arabia near the border with Jordan. He is the eldest son of a sergeant in the Saudi army and a woman who painted houses in the tradition of the Asir region. In 1994 his father returned to his home region of Asir, and the family settled in Abha, where Mater finished school. He studied medicine at King Khalid University in Abha. He received his bachelor’s degree in 2006, and in professional biographies he is usually called a doctor, according to some accounts a surgeon. Alongside his studies, in 1999, he joined the Al-Meftaha art village, part of the King Fahd Cultural Centre. There he was given a studio of his own. Together with other artists of the village he took part in founding the group Shatta (“Winter”), whose first exhibition was held in early 2005. He also received local awards, among them the Abha prize for fine art and photography.
Mater works in painting, calligraphy, photography, video, text, installation and performance. I think his medical training shows in his choice of material: X-rays, anatomical diagrams, the body as a carrier of messages.
His international reputation began with showings in London. In 2008 he took part in “Edge of Arabia”, an exhibition of Saudi art; according to some accounts, the initiative of the same name was founded in 2003 with his participation, but the sources differ on the dating. In 2009 his work “Illumination” referred to the Islamic world, and in the same year he was included in the Venice Biennale, appearing there again in 2011 in the exhibition “The Future of a Promise”. In 2012 came the series “Magnetism”: iron filings drawn by magnets towards a black cube. In 2013 the Sharjah Art Foundation showed his work, and the Victoria and Albert Museum included him in “Light from the Middle East”. In 2016 the exhibition “Symbolic Cities: The Work of Ahmed Mater” opened at the National Museum of Asian Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington; according to some accounts, it was the first solo exhibition by a Saudi artist in the United States. In the same year his book “Desert of Pharan: Unofficial Histories Behind the Mass Expansion of Mecca” was published (Lars Müller Publishers). At that time he also took part in the protest gatherings at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota and showed there “Evolution of Man”: a human X-ray turning into a petrol pump. According to some accounts, in 2016 he was commissioned to paint “The Silk Road”, which Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gave to the president of China.
From 2017 to 2018 Mater directed the Misk Art Institute in Riyadh; the institute organised the exhibition at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. Exhibitions followed in parallel: Alserkal Avenue in Dubai and Galleria Continua in San Gimignano (both 2017), and King Abdullah Economic City (2018). In 2017 the Brooklyn Museum showed “Ahmed Mater: Mecca Journeys”, and in 2019, according to some accounts, the museum held another solo exhibition.
In 2022, in the desert valley of Wadi AlFann, he created a large-scale land art work, “Ashab al-Lal” (“Mirage”). In 2023, at the first Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, he showed “Those Who Carry”: paper permits for Zamzam water carriers around the Meccan mosque. In 2024, with the German photographer Armin Linke, he made the installation “Saudi Futurism”, on infrastructure, landscape management and agriculture; in the same year his exhibition “Blown by the Wind”, with more than a hundred works, was held at Christie’s in London. The French Ministry of Culture made him a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2024.
In 2025 the exhibition “Antenna” was held at UCCA Edge in Shanghai from March to July, and at the second Islamic Arts Biennale he showed “Magnetism”, connected with the circumambulation of the Kaaba.
Profile notes