A doorway emerges as if hewn from weathered rock carved with intricate symbols harking back to ancient Sumerian ceremonies. Celestial forms swirl, drawing us towards its centre. It is a portal to what Bahraini artist Zayn Qahtani calls the ‘whispering world’ – an in-between space where our hopes, desires and prayers intermingle with the forces of the universe. Comprising sculptures and mixed-media works on paper, The Whisperings, Qahtani’s first solo exhibition at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, explores the ways in which we connect with and interpret the subliminal messages that surround us.
Qahtani is known for her innovative use of organic materials – papers crafted from Bahraini date palm trees, bioplastics made from sugarcane, pigments derived from plants, crystals, metals and soil – to create richly textural works that feel as if they have existed for centuries. In this exhibition, in particular, the works possess both an earthly and dream-like quality. They are tangible objects we can hold in our hands, and yet the images they present belong to the realm of the imagination.
Take, for instance, Even the Set Sun Rises, which depicts a figure emerging from a shimmering pool dotted with lily pads. She is a goddess-like presence, her hair intermingling with the water that surrounds her, large tear-drops spilling from her lids, while a flaming sun rises up behind a mountainous landscape, sending out luminescent beams of light that sparkle like fireflies on the surface of the water and in the shadowy sky. Like many of the works in the show, it connects processes of personal transformation and healing with the rhythms of the natural world.
We see this play out similarly in Growing Pains, The Moon Blood Plant and Why Do I Still Persevere? – works which Qahtani cites as the ‘origins’ of her whispering world, emerging from her earliest experiments with natural pigments and immersion in nature. Collectively, they depict the life cycle of anthropomorphic plants from seedling to death, each capturing the struggles and beauty of the different stages.
Manifesting, meanwhile, turns the practice of believing something into actuality into a devotional sculpture. There is a note of satire at play here, in the figure’s performatively distraught expression and praying hands, but the slow, handmade quality of each element along with the iridescent sparkle of crushed abalone shells – a signature of Qahtani’s work – pays tribute to the real comfort that such practices can bring.
Qahtani herself acknowledges the need for escapism and the feeling of a connection to something bigger, whether it be through the making of art or the belief in forces beyond our consciousness. Little, golden anime-like figures pop up throughout the show as her own guardians – sources of light – that came from a period of intense focus and isolation while she was living and working in China, and found solace in the familiarity of playing video games. These figures, like the wider visual language of the exhibition, arise from an attempt to create moments of connection within solitude – small, luminous presences within otherwise uncertain landscapes.
In The Whisperings, Qahtani asks us to sit in a space between knowing and believing. The works do not resolve into fixed meanings, but instead trace the desire to reach beyond ourselves – to find patterns, signs or signals that might answer back.
