1988–present
Shaikha Al Mazrou
Shaikha Al Mazrou (born 1988) works in sculpture and installation, using industrial and metal materials, including electronic waste. She took her master’s degree at Chelsea in London in 2014 and teaches at New York University Abu Dhabi. In 2025 one of her works became the basis of the visual campaign for the Abu Dhabi Art fair, and in Dubai her installation “Thoughtful Pauses” was shown.
Biography
The first award in her record came in 2020: the Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize.
Shaikha Al Mazrou was born in 1988 in the United Arab Emirates. She studied at the College of Fine Arts and Design of the University of Sharjah. In 2014 she received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Chelsea College of Arts in London, where she was named best student in the fine arts department. She later became an assistant professor of visual arts at New York University Abu Dhabi. Her material is industrial and metal: electronic waste, sheet and worked metal. From these she assembles geometric, abstract and conceptual compositions in which form is set in tension with material, and physical volume holds a conversation with emptiness and with the theme of identity. Her starting points are conceptual art, modernism and the Bauhaus, the German school of art and design; to my mind she approaches them by taking a structure apart, rather than following a ready-made scheme. The work “Beyond All Measures” (2024) is built on the oxidation of copper and explores the boundary between the horizon and the idea of it. In 2025, at the latest Abu Dhabi Art fair, this piece was chosen for the fair’s visual campaign.
In the same year, 2025, an installation called “Thoughtful Pauses” (in Arabic, “Waqfat Mutarawiya”) appeared in Dubai. It was made for a specific site and has been described as the largest work of its kind within the artistic strategy for the city’s public space. Together with the fashion house Jimmy Choo, Al Mazrou made a work titled “Symmetrical Repeats”. Among her projects are installations at AlUla International Airport, and the venues where she has shown include Art Dubai and public art programmes.
Her works are in the collections of the RMZ Foundation, Jameel Arts Centre and the Farjam Foundation. She was also nominated for the Louvre Abu Dhabi prize, established together with the watchmaker Richard Mille.
Profile notes