Shaikha Al Mazrou's Poetic Paradoxes
Emirati artist Shaikha Al Mazrou is among the most promising artists of her generation. Her sculptural works are expressions of materiality—articulations of tension and the interplay between form and content, as well as an intuitive understanding of their physical properties. Her latest work, A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance, is a site-specific installation created for the Aichi Triennale in Japan, which runs until November 30. Two large slabs of black marble tiling overlay a water fountain in a courtyard between the Seto City Art Museum and Cultural Center. Al Mazrou, a post-minimalist artist who plays with poetic paradoxes as much as with materials, seemingly revives the fountain, which has been drained since the pandemic. By crafting tiny, meticulously polished waves on the marble to indicate the paradoxical qualities of water, she plays with the artistic genre of still life. For Al Mazrou, water has the power to distort our perception and confuse the simplistic logic of either/or. Visually, the work’s immediacy recalls the minimalism of Japanese dry gardens. The two concentric ripples challenge our perception, the artist says, by evoking “a whisper of motion in stillness.” Adding another layer of meaning, the title is a direct reference to the French poet Stéphane Mallarmé’s A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance, a symbolist text which explores themes of fragmentation, chance, and the unpredictable nature of existence.
Engage (2018). Wet coated steel diptych. Courtesy of the artist and Lawrie Shabibi.
