Lulwah Al-Homoud

Biography

In 2008 the exhibition “Edge of Arabia” opened at the Brunei Gallery of SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. Lulwah Al-Homoud prepared it as one of its curators and also took part as an artist. It is described as the first exhibition of contemporary art from Saudi Arabia of that scale to be held in London.

She was born in 1967 in Riyadh.

Her first degree was earned in Saudi Arabia: in 1988 she graduated in sociology from King Saud University. In London she received a bachelor’s degree in graphic design and audiovisual communication from the American College in 1997, and in 2000 she completed a master’s degree at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, specialising in Islamic art. She is said to have been the first Saudi woman to hold such a degree in this field. The Pakistani calligrapher Rasheed Butt taught her the foundations of Arabic calligraphy; she draws inspiration from the work of the Egyptian calligrapher Ahmed Moustafa. Her research also draws on the reform of Arabic script under the Abbasid Caliphate in the tenth century. Her basic material is the Arabic letter. From letters and geometric figures she builds dense abstract patterns on paper, working in mixed media. She is known for the “Cubes” series, in which a simple cube turns into a complex, interlaced structure. Of her work she has said that she chose an art that expresses faith rather than passing feelings, and that she is interested in the relation between unity and multiplicity. I think this explains why her sheets demand long looking: she admits herself that they are not easy to read.

From the late 1990s she organised cultural events, and from 2001 she took part in exhibitions in London and other cities. In 2006 she worked with the British Museum on a project introducing British schoolchildren to Arab and Islamic culture. Around 2009 she founded the project CUBE Arts with Reem Alfaisal. Their first commission was the promotion of the Saudi pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010; for the pavilion Al-Homoud, it is reported, designed several logos and 118 wall panels.

Al-Homoud’s work has been shown in China, Korea, New York, Paris, Germany, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Bahrain and Beirut. Her solo exhibitions include “Anthology” in Bahrain (2013), “9*9” in Dubai (2014) and a show at the Sharjah Calligraphy Museum (2015). In 2016 “SUBLIMk” opened at the Naila Art Gallery in Saudi Arabia, her first solo exhibition in that country. In 2018 she took part in the London Design Biennale. Her works, it is reported, have been acquired by the Museum Five Continents in Munich, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the Jeju Museum of Contemporary Art in Korea.

In February 2020 the Saudi-British Society awarded her the Rawabet prize for her contribution to strengthening cultural ties between the two countries. In 2021, at the first ceremony of the national cultural awards of the Saudi Ministry of Culture, she received the prize in visual arts. She lives in the United Kingdom.