Catalogue Cover
In Traces of Her, Traces of Words, artists Hayan Maani and Omar Al Shehabi examine how inner states such as memory, language, and emotion, can take shape through form.
Hayan Maani reimagines Arabic letterforms not as written language, but as sculptural traces. Cast in bronze and aluminum, these forms transcend their linguistic meaning. They are not meant to be read, but sensed—inviting viewers to experience calligraphy as presence, memory, and silence in form.
Omar Al Shehabi’s paintings offer a sensitive meditation on interior life, particularly the psychological spaces occupied by women. Through his symbolic use of masks, shadows, and hand gestures, he expresses a layered experience of concealment and revelation. His paintings are not portraits, but emotional maps—where identity is fractured, concealed, and revealed all at once.
Together, Maani and Al Shehabi engage with what resists language: emotion, memory, and identity in flux. Their practices suggest that expression doesn’t always seek clarity; it can hover between presence and absence, language and body, articulation and silence.
