What Floats in Space
At the heart of Tamara Al-Samerraei’s new research, there is an object. Or rather, the idea of an object; a form which has shifted from the realm of the real to become an obsession, where the origin of this shape is of little importance. It could as well be a box, a rock or a pile of waste, but above all, it is the way in which it has been absorbed and digested by the artist, the process of revelation that should interest us. From this forgotten artifact, the artist draws the essence of a new series of work.
Loïc Le Gall
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Tamara Al-SamerraeiLobby, 2018Acrylic paint on canvas194 x 117 cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist -
Tamara Al-SamerraeiOffering, 2018Acrylic on canvas
197 x 147 cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist -
Tamara Al-SamerraeiGreen Carpet, 2018Acrylic on canvas186 x 167 cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
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Tamara Al-SamerraeiBedroom, 2018Acrylic paint on canvas85 x 155 cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
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Tamara Al-SamerraeiNight Shrub, 2018Acrylic paint on canvas108 x 106cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
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Tamara Al-SamerraeiPort Romano, 2018Acrylic paint on canvas124 x 105 cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
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Tamara Al-SamerraeiSleeping Figure , 2018Acrylic on canvas
137 x 104 cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist -
Tamara Al-SamerraeiTwo, 2018Acrylic on canvas
96 x 120 cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist -
Tamara Al-SamerraeiEntry, 2018Acrylic paint on canvas26 x 21 cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
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Tamara Al-SamerraeiOne , 2018Acrylic on canvas77 x 67 cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
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Tamara Al-SamerraeiMonolith, 2019Charcoal on canvas122 x 156 cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
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Tamara Al-SamerraeiUntitled (Shrub), 2019Charcoal on canvas31 x 150 cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
Born in Kuwait in 1977, Tamara Al-Samerraei is a painter who lives and works in Beirut.
She received a BA in Fine Arts from the Lebanese American University in Beirut in 2002 and completed the inaugural year of the Home Workspace Program at Ashkal Alwan (2011-2012), Beirut.
Her solo exhibitions include Promise You Made, Marfa’, Beirut (2023); Outland, Le Centre Intermondes, La Rochelle (2022); What Floats in Space, Marfa’ Projects, Beirut (2019); Let Me Stay a Little Longer, Marfa’ Projects, Beirut (2015-2016); Make Room for Me, Gypsum Gallery, Cairo (2014); Fleeting Fences (2011) and Something White (2008), Agial Art Gallery, Beirut.
She has participated in several group and duo exhibitions including Fondu Re-Encahine, L’Atlas Galerie des Mondes, Paris (2022); Hospitalités-FIAC, InSitu Fabienne Leclerc, Paris (2020); Heavenly Beings:Neiter Human Nor Animal, Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, +MSUM, Ljubljan(2018); The Clocks are Striking Thirteen, 21,39; Jeddah Home Beirut: Sounding the Neighbours, MAXXI museum, Rome (2017); Tamawuj-Sharjah Biennial13, Sharjah (2017); Play The Possum, Gypsum Gallery, Cairo (2016); Complicity, Sultan Gallery, Kuwait (2016); On Water, Rosemary and Mercury in Homeworks 7, Beirut (2015); 25 Ans De Creativite Arabe, Institut Du Monde Arabe, Paris (2012); All About Beirut, White Box, Munich (2010); Exposure, Beirut Art Center, Beirut; Radius of Art project, Fladernbunker, Kiel (2008) and ShoeBox, Dar Al Funoon, Kuwait (2007).
