1987–present
Dana Awartani
Dana Awartani was born in Jeddah in 1987 and trained in London in the traditional arts: stained glass, miniature painting, gilding and, later, manuscript illumination. She works with geometric pattern, tile-work and parquetry, painting, video and sand. Her work is in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington and the British Museum.
Biography
Dana Awartani has said that in Islamic ornament there is no room for chance: behind every structured piece stands its own story. In her words, Arabs grow up surrounded by this geometry, in mosques, for example, and usually do not notice it. She herself, as she recalled, felt drawn to it until she found her way.
She was born in 1987 in Jeddah and grew up there. Her family is of Palestinian origin, and the artist lives and works in Jeddah.
She went to London to study. In 2006 she received a foundation degree in art and design at the Byam Shaw School of Art, and in 2009 she completed a bachelor’s degree in fine art at Central Saint Martins. She then entered The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, where she received a master’s degree in 2011. There she was taught stained glass, miniature painting and gilding, that is, techniques drawn from cultures around the world. She could not obtain a degree in the traditional illumination of manuscripts at the school, and she found an instructor in Turkey, from whom she mastered the discipline. Her work contains a great deal of geometric pattern and fine detail. She works in ornament and illumination, tile-work and parquetry (inlaid wood), and takes as her subject the relationship between geometry and nature and the way truths can be conveyed through geometric rules. She herself calls this language sacred. The method emerged more than a thousand years ago as a substitute for the forbidden depiction of divine figures; fewer and fewer practitioners command it, and she is one of them. She also works in painting, video and sand mosaic.
Of Islamic art she has said that it is not made for the sake of art: it is a spiritual practice, a way of worship that teaches patience and respect, and for her the work is a form of prayer and remembrance. To work she needs complete concentration and a good mood; otherwise, in her words, it does not come out. I think this remark explains a good deal about her slow, painstaking manner.
In 2013 she was included in the Rhizoma project at the 55th Venice Biennale. Today her work is held by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington and by the British Museum in London.
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