Rand Abdul Jabbar explores myths rooted in reality in new solo exhibition

In human history, and even in myth, there are common themes and narratives that still prevail. For her first solo exhibition at Lawrie Shabibi gallery, Iraqi-Canadian artist Rand Abdul Jabbar connects these narratives through carefully curated and constructed clay sculptures and ceramic reliefs.

Entitled Molding Anew, the exhibition is a cross-section of five years of Abdul Jabbar’s work inspired by mythmaking as a means of preservation and transformation.

“You cannot look at the past and the present as separate vacuums – there is a thread that weaves them together,” the Abu Dhabi-based artist tells The National. “I'm really interested in origin myths. They reflect the fundamental values and learnings for us as human beings in our early societies.”

In particular, Abdul Jabbar was exploring myths about the planet Venus which represents the ancient Mesopotamian goddess Inanna, also known as Ishtar. “These myths embody many of humanity’s elemental beliefs around the duality of life and death, love and war,” she says.

“They contemplate our enduring quest for meaning and purpose and signify new journeys towards self-discovery and enlightenment.”

While the exhibition includes some of her earlier work, such as Earthly Wonders, Celestial Beings (2019-ongoing), which was awarded the Richard Mille Art Prize in 2022, there is a strong pull towards her latest body of work, featuring 30 sculptures in the centre of the gallery.

They are created in various sizes and colours and all of them have a subtle but resounding presence. One is drawn to unique shapes and patterns as well as recurring characters. The stylised female body; palm trees; vaselike shapes and crowns – it is a collection of works curated in little groups, or “families” as Al Jabbar refers to them. It is a collection that carries a sense of care and delicacy but is also rooted in familiarity and timelessness.

The works have been made in three main clusters. There is fertility seen through the depictions of the female form but also in the palm trees which are rooted in symbols of life and abundance in the region. The eye idols, which are in sets of five, represent observation and the sense of gazing or witnessing. They recall forms that were excavated from the ancient Mesopotamian Eye Temple at Tell Brak (modern day Syria) in 1937.

The third cluster of shapes are crowns. Abdul Jabbar has always been interested in the form of the headdress, which has a strong presence in ancient sculpture and relief. “It makes me think about that relationship between knowledge and power,” she says. “And how the crown has become a symbol of an expanded mind or even a mind that remembers.”

The works are made of clay, a material that Abul Jabbar has a strong affinity to. She explains that clay has many associated metaphors, such as ideas present in Abrahamic scripture and faith that man was created from a lump of clay, and so naturally people project themselves and their own process of becoming on to the material.

And while the past is very present in her work, Abdul Jabbar views history not through an idealistic lens, but as a means to understand the now. “You cannot look at what's happening today in isolation of everything that has come before it – I feel like we are also a culture of amnesia,” she says.

“We're always trying to forget the past and the trauma and everything that we've gone through. But you can actually learn from it and make sense of it and transform it into something that is productive.

Rand Abdul Jabbar's Molding Anew is running at Lawrie Shabibi in Alserkal Avenue until December 6