Work titled The Space Between Lust and Touch II.

Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer

Emirati artist Noor Al Suwaidi’s exhibition in Aicon Contemporary, New York, titled ‘Divine Chaos’, was inaugurated on September 26 and is on view till November 2. According to art critic and writer Rebecca Anne Proctor, it depicts, “a group of anamorphic shapes in various colours twisting and turning as if partners in a passionate dance.” Reds greet yellows, purples move into pinks while a strong hue of orange makes a bold statement, Proctor says. The colours and shapes dance and mingle before the eyes like friends, family, lovers and new acquaintances – they maintain an unexplained energetic connection.

Al Suwaidi’s latest body of paintings reflect the notion of divine chaos — the idea that even amid the unknown, often chaotic recesses of our daily lives, there is harmony and guidance. “What is divine chaos?” the artist asks. “It is the unordered state of matter in classical accounts of cosmogony. The works are conceived in the act of creative flow.” The abstract shapes and colours in the paintings often meet each other and at other times depart from each other. They move serendipitously, intuitively, trusting the rhythm, gestures and energetic flow of their movements and feelings that pull them towards each other and then away to another area of the canvas, before returning to one another in different shapes and colours.

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The artist explores the zone where the material and immaterial meet; it is the space between reality and dreams, touch and desire. Through the evocative abstract paintings, Al Suwaidi’s works manifest the energy of life and the power of emotion that guides one through life. The paintings dreamily capture the temporary, fleeting shapes of dancers in movement as they break and form. It is a metaphor for the transient yet poignant state of life and how its apparent chaos is possibly the workings of a mystical, unknown form of guidance. The caveat is that we must understand that it is so.

“For Al Suwaidi,” says Proctor, “it is about accepting with grace the chaos and everything that comes from it. There are no mistakes. Even the unfinished is whole; even a mistake becomes art.” Trusting the brush and her intuition to guide her, the forms and colours come naturally. Gracious, abstracted forms are the result, featuring a rich palette of hues. “‘Divine Chaos’ is about tapping into another world, an invisible, divine and special world that is always around us,” Proctor concludes. “Chaos is not disorder; it can offer harmony and beauty in a mystical and otherworldly way.”

  Emirati artist Noor Al Suwaidi.

Aicon Contemporary opines that in Noor Al Suwaidi’s work, “each mass of colour is deliberately placed, creating a precise balance between movement and stillness.” They serve not merely as aesthetic elements, but as integral forces that orchestrate a synchronisation in the compositions, reflecting both control and spontaneity. As a student in the United States, Aicon Contemporary continues, Al Suwaidi’s education included life drawing, which she both relished and excelled at. Back in her native UAE, this morphed, as she began to devolve the female form into something unrecognised, yet still fundamentally human.

“Her work operates at an intersection between personal and collective experience … the artist’s choice of abstraction can be viewed as an act of negotiation — between her artistic ambitions and the societal framework she inhabits. Yet, far from limiting her, these boundaries seem to sharpen her artistic voice … The use of abstraction invites us to reflect on the power of art to transcend and reimagine. The artist’s work reminds us that abstraction is not a retreat from reality, but a deep engagement with it — an act of both resistance and reverence.”

Noor Al Suwaidi (b. 1981, Abu Dhabi) is an artist and curator with a career spanning over two decades. She did her schooling at the Al Khansaa government school in Al Buteen, Dubai; her artistic talent was evident from a young age. Known for the abstract, figurative shapes that define her artworks along with a masterful use of colour, she earned her Master’s degree in curating contemporary design from Kingston University in London. Prior to that, she received her Bachelor’s degree in Studio Art from American University in Washington, D.C.

From 2018 to 2022, she worked at Abu Dhabi’s contemporary art fair, Abu Dhabi Art, while simultaneously continuing her art practice. As a curator of contemporary art, she specialises in the work of Emirati artists. She is a founding member of the Cultural and Arts Authority in Dubai and in 2017, was invited by the Louvre Abu Dhabi to discuss Giovanni Bellini’s Madonna and Child with Saints. Al Suwaidi has described how her figurative paintings can reflect Arabic calligraphy. Her artistic practice focuses on work in paint and collage. In 2011, her composition ‘Bare with Me’ was sold at Christie’s as part of a wider sale of Arab, Iranian and Turkish contemporary art.

She has taken part in a number of artistic residencies in London, Rome and Berlin. In 2011, she held her first solo exhibition in London at the Cork Street Gallery, which was entitled ‘Like Coral I Create Clouds’. She has exhibited her work all over the world, including London, Berlin, Istanbul, Kuwait, Washington, D.C., and the United Arab Emirates. Her works are held in public and private collections, including Barjeel Art Foundation, Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation, and the private collection of Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Bin Zayed Al Nayhan.