Shadi Al-Atallah, selected by Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, creates large-scale figurative paintings: the dark and dynamic figures depicted in their mixed-media work are distorted self-portraits of the artist that capture the absurdity of conflicting emotional states. Their work explores the performativity of cathartic spiritual practice by drawing connections between the Queer ballroom scene and folkloric dance traditions from African diasporic communities in the Arabian Peninsula.

An idea of discomfort, both sensory and emotional, is a main focus. Speaking about their work, the artist says, ‘My paintings are archives of uncomfortable memories, some humorous and others painful. Paint is the perfect medium for archiving consciousness. It intensifies or hides aspects of memory in a way that mirrors the process of remembering. Painting and remembering both are attempts at reconstructing our imperfect perceptions.’

Developed through a process of collecting images, memes and film stills to build a figure, these self-portraits are also reconstructions that might, for example, include a gymnast’s contorted limbs and a crying celebrity’s drooping mouth. ‘I fuse all the body parts to create a monster of my embodied self at that moment,’ the artist explains. ‘This fusion occurs directly on the canvas, where I compile these images with a brush, using a fluid mixture of ink, acrylic paint and soda.’ This use of paint enables the artist to escape the constraints of language, allowing them to invent genderless figures, ones that embody an ambiguity that language rarely grants. This ambiguity is used in turn to question Shadi’s own ideas on gender and sexuality while allowing space for the viewer to connect and identify with the work.

Shadi Al-Atallah was born in Saudi Arabia in 1994 and currently lives and works in London. They received their MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art in 2021.