Emirati Artist Sara Ahli On Her Experimental Sculptural Practice

Fashion designer-turned-artist Sara Ahli discusses her interest in the human body, the inspiration behind her sculptural experiments, and influences on her visual language…

With their distinctly anthropomorphic quality, Sara Ahli’s sculptural works – some directly, others more vaguely – resemble different parts of the human body.

The experimental nature of her practice is revealed through explorations into materiality, structure, pressure, and discomfort, all while retaining a certain playfulness through her use of colour.

Her installation Skin, a hanging sheet of pigmented silicone rubber, eerily recalls a piece of human skin, including its different textures, lumps, and cracks.

The work Collection of Bones: A Spine shows a clean array of arc-shaped pieces of white plaster on a table, reminiscent of what one might see in a mortuary, or else in archaeological excavations.

“The human body is the biggest influence on my work,” says Ahli, “right now, it is to sort out the question of what is body?, how does it hold memory?, how can discomfort turn into comfort?, and finally, how can something almost grotesque feel pleasing?”

Sara Ahli, Balloon Baggage 3, 2020. Photo Courtesy of the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation

“It’s all about playing with this impressional vessel that is the body, whether it’s the interior or the exterior, skin or bones.”

Ahli’s various balloon series have a more light-hearted quality to them.

In her Balloon Stacks, we see round clumps in different comic book-like colours – some faintly resembling human organs, others with the more innocent look of water balloons one might find at children’s birthday parties – stacked one on top of the other.

Her Clenched Figures, made of glossy latex balloons filled with plaster, coated in resin, and pressed together with a large industrial metal clamp, showcase her explorations into the themes of pressure, release, deformation, and physical memory.

Sara Ahli, Skin, 2021. Photo Courtesy of Noor Althehli

“I know that my work exudes this very intense narrative of pressure and discomfort. In putting my balloons through this suffocating process, I felt that I needed the colour to create a balance in order to give the pieces back a certain lightness.

But my use of colour is also a comment on this playfulness and glossiness that I believe most of us in society create to show to the public, but then when you dig deep, you understand that what is beneath the shiny exterior, is often more intense and there is more depth to it.”

Ahli earned her BFA from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco in 2015 and began her career as a fashion designer before moving into the field of fine art. It was her work in fashion design that led to her explorations into the human body in her sculptural works.

“In fashion, you are still working with the body. You are creating something like a walking installation or a walking piece of art in which you’re focused on the exterior of the body – things like shape, form, and space.

Sara Ahli, Collection of Bones: A Spine, 2021. Photo Courtesy of Noor Althehli

When it came to focusing more on fine art and sculpture, I started to subconsciously look inwards and had this need to execute my inner bodily feelings into a three-dimensional piece that would then be able to take space in a physical room. I think the body is fascinating because it carries so much memory, whether we are aware of it or not.”

The visual influences on Ahli’s work are two-fold. On the one hand, her interest in and experimentation with human form is related to her work in fashion and her own understanding of body and physicality.

Sara Ahli, Balloon Stacks 5, 2021. Photo Courtesy of Noor Althehli

“With fashion, you’re still storytelling, there’s still a narrative and you have to build your two-dimensional idea in 3D, so you’re buying trims, getting fabrics, basically getting all your tools and materials, to then build this exterior, and you’re using the body as a canvas.”

On the other hand, Ahli took part in the Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship (SEAF) Cohort 7, held in partnership with the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) last year, an experience for which she is grateful.

Alongside feedback from her professors and fellows in the programme, Ahli was introduced to works by artists like Doreen Garner, Rachel Whiteread and Robert Gober, all of whom employ a similar visual language including experimentations with bodily forms or the use of space. Ahli’s long-term vision for her work is to move away from her current state of exploration.

Sara Ahli, Clenched Figures 7, 2021. Photo Courtesy of Noor Althehli

“In the works I created up to now, the experimentation is the work. They were created to see the body as a process rather than a finished piece. Through the procedure of creation, I’m able to change the description of what the body is from a noun to a verb. Now, I am looking to go more in-depth and move on to a larger scale.”

She adds, “I have already had people ask me if I could make the balloon sculptures bigger, which is definitely in the back of my mind. My goal is to push the meaning of body, memory, and discomfort further and create more finished pieces rather than stay in the process of experimentation itself.”

A selection of Ahli’s sculptural works were on show in her debut solo exhibition Placeless Place, presented by art platform 101 and held at the Foundry earlier this year.

For more information visit @sara_a_ahli

Photo Courtesy of Noor Althehli

Lead image courtesy of Instagram/ @sara_a_ahli