Filwa Nazer

Between the Neck and the Shoulder

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Filwa Nazer, Between the Neck and the Shoulder, 2019, Black polyester, green polyethylene and cotton, 157 x 106 cm. Courtesy of the artist. Art Jameel Collection

Artwork Details

Artist

Filwa Nazer

Title

Between the Neck and the Shoulder

Date

2019

Medium

Black polyester, green polyethylene and cotton

Dimensions

157 x 106 cm

Credit Line

Art Jameel Collection

Work Description

Between the Neck and the Shoulder is part of a series of works which mark a shift in Filwa Nazer’s practice away from collage and print-based work to her use of textile. Nazer’s practice centres around themes of embodiment and the relationship between self and place. Drawing from her background in fashion design, she creates large scale textile sculptures through which she explores the body’s relationship to space both physically and psychologically. She employs textiles and sewing techniques as a medium to explore relationships between our bodies and the spaces we occupy, thus unveiling an intimate experimental process that reflects the tensions inherent in both.

Nazer’s points of departure are both personal and political, responding to moments of change in her life that coincided with rapid social progress in Saudi Arabia. In Between the Neck and the Shoulder, Nazer transposes the outlines of architectural plans from two distinct living spaces, namely her homes in London and Jeddah, overlapping and abstracting these outlines through embroidery onto an oversized and ambiguous hanging garment. She queries how we inhabit these spaces, and alludes to spaces in-progress, drawing from a vocabulary of patternmaking and using materials including industrial netting typically used to shroud buildings under construction. In exploring the spaces we occupy in our bodies, between being and becoming, within our clothes, and in our homes, Nazer seeks to investigate how our sense of self relates to spaces we inhabit, especially as we transition through and with these spaces. 

Artist Biography

Filwa Nazer (born 1972, Swansea, UK), lives and works between London and Jeddah 

Filwa Nazer is a Saudi artist whose abstract textile works, collages, and drawings merge techniques and materials from the fields of the visual arts, fashion, and architecture. Her explorations of women’s lives in the context of Saudi Arabia give visual and spatial form to emotions, personal stories, and collective memories. After graduating from the Marangoni School of Fashion and Design in Milan, Nazer attended classes offered by the pioneering Saudi painter Safeya Binzagr, who had turned her home in Jeddah into an art gallery, library, and school for other women artists in the early 1990s. Nazer has shown her work in a number of major international exhibitions, such as the Middle East Institute, US (2023), the 16th Lyon Biennale, France (2022-23), and the Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE (2019).

Useful Links

https://hayyjameel.org/whats-on/filwa-nazer-artist-in-residence-at-hayy-studios/

https://hayyjameel.org/whats-on/public-talk-filwa-nazer-mona-ayyash/

https://hayyjameel.org/whats-on/the-distance-from-here/