Jaali Installations
2013 - 2022
Jaali-Hanging Gardens, MDF screen carvings & enamel paint, 9’ x 9’ x 9’
Tulsa Artist Fellowship
Tulsa, OK
Memphis College of Art
Memphis, TN
Plain Gallery, University of Memphis
Memphis, TN
Hyde Gallery
Memphis, TN
LuminArte Gallery
Dallas, TX
Nashville International Airport
Nashville, TN
MDF screen carvings, wood, & enamel paint
Top row: Hanging Gardens, 9’ x 9’ x 9’, 2013
2nd & 3rd row: Contemporary Ruins I, 9’ x 9’ x 9’, 2013
3rd & 4th row: Contemporary Ruins II, 9’ x 12’ x 4”, 2013
Right 4th row: Untitled, 8.5’ x 3.5’ x 7”, 2013
5th row: Garden-scape, 9’ x 14’ x 4”, 2013
6th & 7th row: Dancing in the Rain, 8' x 8' x 10', 2013
Bottom row: Urban Ruins, 14’ x 10’, 2013
Jaali II: Only from the heart can you touch the sky. —Rumi, 2022
The Jaali (Urdu for ‘screens’) installations were formative for me, in many ways demarking the transition into my current body of artistic research. I based the series on carved geometric patterns evoking Islamic architecture, which for me represented my cultural heritage. As the life I had built as an immigrant to the United States fell apart, I broke the screens I had designed, reassembling them into new structures. At a time of trauma and loss, the reconfigured forms were metaphors for life rebuilt, of creating new realities from broken parts, evoking hope, vision for a future, transcendence. Both formally and conceptually, the Jaali series initiated investigations that still drive my practice: What new structures and futures can we create from the ruins of the past? Destruction and resurrection; our shared humanity and cosmic interconnectedness illuminated through sacred geometry and patterns; healing and transformation through art and nature: these themes lie at the heart of my work.
© 2014-2024 Sarah Ahmad. All Rights Reserved.