In recent years, Saudi Arabia has emerged as a prestigious artistic destination boasting creative minds and an elite of talented artists.
The year 2024 has witnessed the blooming of several Saudi artists who amazed the audience with stunning artworks and unparalleled skills.
Ghada Al-Shammari
Saudi Artist Ghada Al-Shammari found full inspiration in passionate Arabic songs and emotional poetry that eventually sparked creative artistic ideas in her mind. As a result, Al-Shammari decided to employ her skills in digital art to showcase Saudi Arabia’s culture and traditions.
Al-Shammari intended from the very beginning of her career to portray an accurate image of the traditional man and woman in the Saudi culture.
“Saudi culture and traditions have significantly impacted my work. Growing up, I used to think of Saudi Arabia as just what was around me in terms of environment, customs, and traditions,” Al-Shammari said.
Many of her artworks depict women wearing traditional Najdi-style dresses and gowns with draping silhouettes and glimmering gold headpieces and turbans. Saudi men are portrayed while wearing traditional garments such as the head coverings called ghutra or shemagh, and bisht, the men’s cloak frequently worn in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.
Sara Abdullah
Saudi artist Sara Abdullah crafts beautiful illusions of nature with intricate floral sculptures. Abdullah’s floral sculptures reflect her belief in the harmonization between humanity and nature. She believes that nature is full of significances. It waits for people to observe and find inspiration in its wonders.
To the artist, nature mirrors creativity, inspiration and deep magical meaning. “Both (art and nature) are means of exploring the deeper aspects of the human existence. As artists, we can capture and express the intangible aspects of our lives that defy simple verbal descriptions,” she said.
Abdullah has been closely observing one of the fascinating aspects of the nature; flowers. She found magical and hidden beauty in turning these delicate flowers to floral sculptures.
Alstroemeria (2024)
In Alstroemeria (2024), Abdullah intended to express certain feelings and emotions through her outstanding collection. The design consists of a wood base, precisely curved to reflect the feeling of emotional containment. To produce these pieces, Abdullah handcrafted pieces of the flower with twisted and connected edges, representing the petals from the very beginning of their life until their flowering.
Accordingly, the message of the artwork is to delve into the close connections and depth of feelings between people and the ability to support each other through life’s ups and downs.
Ahmad Angawi
With an extraordinary combination between the ancient Hijazi heritage and contemporary innovative approaches, Al-Mangour was not just a traditional craft for decorating windows, rather a window to the bequest of woodworking in Saudi Arabia.
Ahmad Angawi is a pioneering architect born in 1981. He holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial design from Pratt Institute in New York.
The talented artist got a master’s degree in traditional arts from The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts in London.
Born in Mecca, Angawi found himself surrounded by various aspects of cultural heritage and diversified architectural styles.
Influenced by his father, Architect Dr. Sami Angawi, he has adopted the concept of “Al Mizan”, a belief in the fundamental principle of balance.
In the light of this, the Saudi artist has a long fruitful journey of analyzing and documenting the creation process of Al-Mangour.
Angawi believes that there are certain hidden aspects of Islamic geometry in forming this forgotten craft. Therefore, he devoted all his efforts to discovering the proportion concealed within the depths of Al-Mangour.
“In some of my projects I have explored not only the aesthetic result, but also the end result geometrically and the way it’s made,” Angawi said.
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