Zahrah Alghamdi is an established artist who is best known for producing site-specific installations that flow and expand across architectural structures and natural landscapes. Alghamdi’s practice investigates memory and history through traditional architecture in both medium and assemblage. Her site-specific artwork demonstrates the arduous and exacting method by which she assembles bits of soil, clay, pebbles, leather, and water. The idea of “embodied memory” affects both the medium and the way the artist makes art in order to show and explain issues of cultural identity, memory, and loss. Memory is a key consideration, and the artist thinks deeply about the idea of material memory, which describes the notion that objects and substances, when subject to the artist’s process, become capable of revealing aspects of cultural identity, remembrance, and loss. Material connection is centrally important to the artist, as she feels that she needs to be in direct contact with materials to work with them. Place is equally important, and Alghamdi chooses to create in-situ for this reason, with the final form of works being informed by the structures and significance of their location. She chooses to use traditional materials and methods, which she contrasts with contemporary applications to great effect. Alghamdi’s practice can be understood as a sensorily invested one, wherein the smell, touch and weight of sand, leather, acacia, cotton, or plaster are essential to informing how each material is creatively employed.
Recent selected exhibitions include Coachella Desert X, Coachella, USA, 2021; Streams Move Oceans, Athr, Jeddah, KSA, 2019 (solo); After Illusion, Venice Biennale, Venezia, Italy, 2019 (solo); and An Inanimate Village, British Museum, London, UK, 2017 (solo). In 2017 the artist undertook the Artists in Labs residency in Zurich, Switzerland.
Alghamdi holds a PhD in Design and Visual Art from Coventry University, Coventry, UK, a Master of Arts in Contemporary Craft, Coventry University, Coventry, UK. 2013, and a Bachelor of Arts in Islamic Arts, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, KSA.
Alghamdi’s work can be found in many collections including the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, the British Museum, London, UK, and Art Jameel Foundation, Dubai, UAE.