MAITHA ABDALLA

Maitha discovered her passion for arts at an early age, however it was through art and

design courses in London at Middlessex University that her understanding of art had

flourished. She went on to gain a BA in visual arts from the college of arts and creative

enterprises at Zayed University.

As if harnessing the subconscious, Maitha Abdalla’s work oscillates between the

diaphanous, vibrant and surreal, and is always marked by an atmosphere of reminiscence

and nostalgia. Often evolved into series articulating strong cultural narratives, her paintings

and mixed media works are assemblages of memory, travel and human interactions.

Informed by exchanges and experiences, her socially driven commentaries on the human

condition reveal astute, intuitive observations on the world around her, in a narrative form.

A particularly influential encounter was with the children of an orphanage, where Maitha

taught English and art. The motifs of childhood began to permeate her work after this time,

becoming an eloquent vernacular in which she further explores the difference between the

imaginary and the real; mapping the liminal space between these interconnected worlds,

she plays out many questions of social and cultural identity.