MANDY EL-SAYEGH

A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is London-based artist Mandy El-Sayegh’s inaugural solo exhibition in Dubai. The site-specific exhibition, encompassing painting, installation, video, sound, and performance, operates as an immersive environment for accessing multiple overlapping truths. Drawing from autobiographical Chinese and Palestinian symbols and motifs, alongside popular visual cultural materials and newsprint, El-Sayegh employs the studio art of bricolage interconnecting existing materials to create new meaning.

Borrowing its title from a line in American modernist writer Gertrude Stein’s poem Sacred Emily (1913), the exhibition underscores the reclamation of words, actions, events, or things. The repeated use of the word ‘rose’ reinforces the poetic nature of ideas and language, which is especially poignant in times of censorship and diminished civil liberties.

Engaging with interconnected themes such as poetry, migration, movement, rebellion, and remembrance, El-Sayegh’s art navigates through conflicting and fragmented ideas. Interweaving these urgent concerns, the works on view offer an alternative perspective for reframing current events, histories, and possible futures.

The exhibition is organized by New York-based global art curator and writer Sara Raza. To complement the exhibition, Raza has contributed an insightful essay that provides a deeper understanding of the artist’s work and the thematic threads running through the exhibition.

Lawrie Shabibi