ABOUT
Maha Malluh is a Saudi artist based in Riyadh. She works between London & Vienna. Malluh began exhibiting her art in 1976. Since then, she has become an internationally acclaimed artist, gaining recognition from important institutions.
She has a BA in English Literature from King Saud University in Riyadh and a certificate in Design and Photography from De Anza College in California. She has been exhibiting in Saudi Arabia and internationally while continuing to radically develop her practice. Malluh’s more recent work is considered her most experimental.
Her artworks examine the emblematic and cultural symbols of Saudi Arabian civilization and hinge on globalization, as well as its effect on the urban population in Saudi Arabia, the rural environment, and material culture in the Kingdom.
Over the past years, she has explored, experimented with, and expanded the art of the photogram. This art form is an early turn-of-the-century technique invented by Fox Talbot, which captures a photographic image without a camera by exposing photosensitive paper directly to a light source. The arrangement of objects interrupting the passage of light determines the photogram’s appearance. These photograms chronicle the great changes that have continued to occur in Saudi Arabia over recent decades, with the resulting clashes between tradition and modernity. Her most recent work includes mixed media installations, which use found objects that can be seen as historical symbols of collective Saudi identity. Among these items are massive enameled dishes, cassette tapes of religious lectures, discarded oil barrels, and metal doors typical of the region.
Malluh had her first solo exhibition, ‘Capturing Light’, at Gallery O in Riyadh (2007). Her work is included in many museums and private collections, in Abu Dhabi, the UAE, the British Museum and Tate Modern in London, the Louvre and the Center Pompidou in Paris, the Mak in Vienna, the Guggenheim, and lately SFMOMA in the USA.