Shaqayeq Arabi is a painter, sculptor, and installation artist.
Arabi’s work finds its point of departure in image, sound, and smell, as well as the sensitivity of the surrounding environment. In sketching, composing, and connecting accumulated fragments, Arabi traces her reminiscences, creating a tangible and touchable reality out of the emotions and sensations.
She received her Bachelor's in Graphic Design from Al-Zahra University, Tehran, a BFA from the University of Valenciennes, France, and an MFA from Sorbonne University, Paris.
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My work is often composed of simple materials, fundamentally abstract, yet evoking a range of associations, speaking to both the built, urban environment and the natural world. My materials are a bricolage of fragments and objects found throughout my daily life, assembled and transformed into sculptures, installations, or architectural structures, exploring the shifting relationships between representation, abstraction, and materiality.
The process is intuitive, spontaneous, and intimate.
My large-scale and immersive environments typically combine found objects with natural elements, including metal mesh, wire, paper, film, glue, twigs, plants, wood, and paint. Loosely held together or freely hanging, the individual components perform a tenuous balancing act, seeking an equilibrium between adaptation and stability.
Natural materials have a life span unto themselves; they possess internal and external existential references to the patterns of life and decay, to the fragmentary and fragile nature of our life, and to the intricate relationship between humanity and its habitat.
I embrace the vulnerability and build upon the fragility of our hopes and dreams, the delicacy of our feelings, and the sensitivity of our senses.
Each work is part of the ongoing practice & built upon the previous projects and integrated into the next.
Shaqayeq Arabi