Third Line hosts "Patience is Beautiful"

Transcript

00:00Exploring the space between East and West, that was the theme for Suzanne Hafune's exhibition

00:12at Dubai's Third Line Gallery.

00:14The artist works across a variety of mediums and draws on her Egyptian and German heritage

00:19for inspiration.

00:20I work always in tiers between German and Egyptian culture, about different cultural

00:27codes, different meanings in words, in sayings, in colors, in images.

00:34A large part of her work focuses on the Mashrabiyya, a central part of Islamic architecture that

00:40has been used for centuries.

00:41Mashrabiyya in the past was a meaning that women were sitting behind and observed but

00:42couldn't be seen.

00:43But now it's a very abstract medium for me.

00:44It's like something, like a wall or like a screen where something is behind which can

00:51be seen or not seen.

00:59Hafune's work explores issues of self-expression and displacement and the feeling of living

01:04in between cultures.

01:06She balances something that is so much a part of this region and yet shows like a sort of

01:1221st century appeal to it.

01:14I mean, as an artist I go, wow, like, oh, I wish I'd thought of it in the other part

01:18of me too.

01:19What a great girl.

01:20She's amazing.

01:21I love her work.

01:22That's the interesting part about her work.

01:24I like the word and the letters she used.

01:26She has used Arabic language and she has used English language.

01:28Well, actually, Arabic letter and English letter.

01:30That's what I feel like the power that's coming from her work.

01:34The constant search for identity runs throughout her art.

01:37At times it borders on angst, but it does make for compelling work.

01:42Ashaf Helmi, Gulf News.