The sculpture Miner is the largest to date from the artist’s series of 3D-printed sculptures. For these, she appropriates the shape of real drill heads used in the oil industry, which she then transforms into fantastical alien-like artifacts from a futurist past. The white colour and pearly shine of these works grant the objects a magical quality, but their appearance also refers back to the history of pearl diving, which was the main industry in her native Kuwait before the discovery of oil. Between pearls and oil, which share an iridescent colour at either end of the color spectrum – black and white – Miner becomes an almost religious object, a totem of power that manages to dazzle despite its potential for destruction.
Commissioned by Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2023
The sculpture Miner is the largest to date from the artist’s series of 3D-printed sculptures. For these, she appropriates the shape of real drill heads used in the oil industry, which she then transforms into fantastical alien-like artifacts from a futurist past. The white colour and pearly shine of these works grant the objects a magical quality, but their appearance also refers back to the history of pearl diving, which was the main industry in her native Kuwait before the discovery of oil. Between pearls and oil, which share an iridescent colour at either end of the color spectrum – black and white – Miner becomes an almost religious object, a totem of power that manages to dazzle despite its potential for destruction.
Commissioned by Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2023