Abu Dhabi-based multimedia artist Amna AlMemari graduated with a bachelor’s degree in visual arts from the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises, Zayed University. Soon after graduating, AlMemari was awarded the Emerging Artists Fellowship (SEAF), which allowed her to further grow and develop her skills through process and experimentation as a young artist. AlMemari was granted a full scholarship by the Salama bint Hamdan Foundation to pursue a master’s degree in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design. AlMemari worked as an assistant professor at the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises under the visual arts department. Her main research interests include the subjects of embodiment, the transpersonal, Islamic mysticism, art education pedagogy, and accessibility of art and art education for the blind.
Through multiple media, Almemari’s practice is rooted in patterns and code. The artist illustrates ideas ruled by the Sufi orders and traditions, moving in circular motions to attain any agency of the intuitive and the emotional carried within— God versus the world, matter versus the spirit, body versus mind, and good versus evil. Time has been a shapeshifting currency to this constant war within, aiming to study its ever-changing form. Amna AlMemari uses the transpersonal as a grid to all that is divine underneath all the dichotomies surrounding us.
Her works have been featured in selected group exhibitions at the Rhode Island School of Design, Rhode Island, USA (2019); NYUAD Project Space, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2016); Emirates Fine Arts Society, Sharjah, UAE (2015).