Zahrah Alghamdi on Material Accumulation, Leather Narratives, and Outdoor vs. Indoor Installations

Multimedia artist Zahrah Alghamdi, based in Jeddah, discusses her sculptural practice centered on material accumulation as a visual language. She transforms singular, familiar materials through contemplative repetition into orchestrated masses that carry personal imprints. Leather holds special significance in her work, treated as a living entity with chemical and narrative potentials, embodying contradictions like strength and fragility. Alghamdi's approach varies between outdoor public commissions and white cube exhibitions: outdoor works like Glimpses of the Past (2020) at Desert X AlUla and What Lies Behind the Walls (2021) in California engage directly with environmental elements, allowing materials to erode or transform as part of the narrative. Indoor installations such as Mycelium Running (2019) focus on finer detail and material rhythm within controlled spaces. She balances memory and history as intertwined forces, using both to create contemporary narratives layered with contradictions. Abstraction serves as an open space for viewer interpretation, though figurative accents sometimes emerge unintentionally, as seen in works from her solo exhibition Between Memory and Matter. Her craft has evolved with project scale, returning to traditional techniques like embroidery, weaving, and leather work as contemplative acts tied to bodily rhythm and cultural foundation. This interview originally appeared in Canvas 120: The Traces Left.