Sean Kelly Gallery is delighted to return to the UAE for Abu Dhabi Art 2017. This year the gallery will present extraordinary new works by Idris Khan and Shahzia Sikander.
Recently honored with the 2017 American Architecture Prize for his design of Abu Dhabi’s memorial park, Wahat Al Karama, Idris Khan draws inspiration from diverse cultural sources including literature, history, art, music and religion. Khan’s unique narrative compounds the many layers of history and abstract imagery to form a single snapshot in time. At the fair this year, we will present a selection of new works on glass, paper and photography. Khan’s latest body of work reinforces his practice of creation and erasure, creating a palimpsest of images through repetition.
Rooted in classical Indo-Persian miniature portraiture painting, Shahzia Sikander’s artistic practice expands the strict formal tropes of the genre through experimenting with scale and new media. For her debut at Abu Dhabi Art, her film, Disruption as Rapture, 2016, will be included in Focus: Beyond Territory, a special section of the fair curated by Omar Kholeif. This animated film was commissioned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and most recently included in the Karachi Biennale 2017, in Pakistan. At the booth the gallery will showcase a remarkable selection of new works on paper. Sikander’s unique approach to the historic tradition of miniature painting questions contemporary ideas of language, trade, empire, and migration.
For more information on the fair, please visit abudhabiart.ae
For additional information on each artist please visit, Idris Khan and Shahzia Sikander.