What Lies Beneath: Sarah Alagroobi’s Works of Art Are A Deep Dive Into Self Discovery

Bazaar sits down with renowned artist-cum-educator, Sarah Alagroobi to discuss art in the era of isolation, her unapologetically raw approach and an upcoming Banat Collective exhibition at Warehouse421 with the Bombay Institute for Critical Analysis and Research (BICAR) in Abu Dhabi

“There’s a transient nature to being a global citizen,” muses Sarah Alagroobi about her nomadic upbringing and free-thinking education.

Half-Emirati and half-Syrian, raised between Brussels and Turkey, the artist acknowledges, “For me, feeling part of the region but also at the same time feeling displaced, there is an understanding of the notion of cultural identity that also has undertones of feeling othered by both communities. That otherness also, in some strange way, takes place on the canvas as well, and in works other than painting – I also write poetry and prose that unpack those ideas.” The arresting results are a compelling and confronting visual and literary voyage of discovery that both literally and metaphysically mimes the precious layers of her very own sense of self.

 Sarah Alagroobi. After Thought, 2021. Acrylic on wood panel, 61x46cm

How has our new era of isolation influenced you as an artist?

I’ve always been a very self-reflective person so the idea of post-rationalising and existing in a world where I would dismantle my thoughts and ideas and revisit them time and time again, was something that came naturally to me. However, during the pandemic I was hit with a wave of a really hard existential crisis. I also describe it as me straddling two parts of my practice – the dip in and out of existentialism and imposter syndrome.

I was battling the two in the beginning of the pandemic and I felt really lost but then I saw that as an opportunity to really invite critical thinking and the notion of failure to my doorstep and really embrace it. I was going in with the mindset of just creating work and trying to use whatever materials I could find that were around me. I started recycling paints, grinding them down and using paintings again, recycling resin and recycling canvases that have already been painted on. It really allowed for my practice to expand and really play with the notion of time.

Sarah Alagroobi. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.,2019. Acrylic on wood panel, 60x80cm

Your process of dismantling, digging and discovery feels incredibly brave. Is that deliberate?

It’s always been deliberate. I’ve never approached things from a position of fear or even from a position of shame. I’m always very raw, very unapologetic, and that’s really important because I think the authenticity of the work has to speak for itself. The reason why I do a lot of work that’s rooted in the notion of ambiguity or abstraction is because a lot of my previous work was heavily motivated by the need to have a very strong and watertight conceptual thread. There always had to be a definition and explanation for everything, because if there wasn’t, there was a fear of being misunderstood and that’s something that I’ve always felt has been a part of me and my journey of trying to see if there’s a place that I could potentially carve out for myself to exist.

I am neither here nor there, I am neither whole this or whole that, but I am a third version of that. Within an Emirati social fabric, which is highly insular and a very tribal kind of culture that’s embedded in the hegemony of cultural identity, I sit on the periphery. Also with Syrian identity or even Western identity – I always sit on the fringes of them. So, when it comes to painting, it is the one area where the fringe doesn’t exist, the depressions and the surfaces are so intentional that you can actually see the process of the work unfold in front of you. There is no illusion of depth, there is depth. There is no illusion of a surface articulation that you’re trying to conceal by doing a cool trick. Everything that you see is in front of you.

Sarah Alagroobi. Cave (detail shot), 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 30x40cm

What are you working on at the moment?

I am engaging in a few projects, not as an artist, but rather as a curator. I am part of a grassroots initiative by the name of Banat Collective that discusses womanhood and feminism within the cultural umbrella of West Asia, North Africa, South Asia and the diaspora. The founder Sara bin Safwan and I are co-curating an exhibition scheduled to open in September at Warehouse421 in Abu Dhabi.

The exhibition will feature women exploring the notion of ‘woman’ as a vehicle of exploitation and aesthetics and politics of emancipation that reclaim a woman’s unframed potentiality, existing in a liminal space, fluctuating between challenging and perpetuating social hegemonies.

Sarah Alagroobi. Speak it into the void and baptise yourself, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel, 60x80cm

How do you play with the notion of time?

In terms of my paintings, I really played with the threshold between subjectivity and objectivity, to where the paintings would become the object and not just the subject. I was able to carve out the history of the object every time I would excavate the painting and really peel back all of the layers and the strata that you see on the surface of the canvas.

The idea of me just painting on a canvas on a hot day was something that was really alien to me. The canvases would require a lot of discipline, a lot of patience, a lot of time to take and build up layer by layer and so time became the vehicle in which I saw the outcome of the practice and how the practice was transforming over the time of the pandemic. 

Sarah Alagroobi. Kintsugi No More (detail shot), 2021. Acrylic on wood panel, 61x46cm

You continue to work as a professor teaching graphic design and art foundation, and also in art education overseeing historical sites and museums. How does this impact you as an artist?

I pride myself on the fact that I’m not secretive with my practice. I find that when artists withhold information about how a process is being done, it doesn’t leave enough room for other people to use you as a sounding board or a point of departure into their own practice. Then it stops at you. If you don’t share your practice or transmit your knowledge, or you don’t become a teacher of what you do, then it gets lost.

And then, what impact have you made? What have you done that was beyond just being self-serving? I think that when it comes to that aspect of my practice, I always kind of come from a position of this is how it’s done, this is how I make it and if you’re on that journey too, I would be more than happy to be there with you. We are part of a collective consciousness. 

For more information, please visit sarahalagroobi.com

Photography: Mohammad Adel Rashid. Images courtesy of the artist

From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia June 2021 Issue