After becoming the first Emirati woman to earn a PhD in Fine Arts, Najat Makki broadened her practice to include sculpture and relief-making, working with materials such as metal and fibreglass. Centring womanhood as a recurring theme, her work reflects the emotional, social and embodied experiences of women, rendered through both abstract and figurative forms.

Palestine (1995) is a relief fashioned from fibreglass—a material Makki embraced for its accessibility, malleability and affordability. Created just a few years after the First Intifada, the work depicts Palestine as a monumental woman whose curving form encircles symbols of land, martyrdom, peace, imprisonment and oppression. A dove rests in her arms and another appears behind her, while a third is confined behind vertical bars at the bottom of the relief. Small faces emerge from the surrounding woman’s structure, their closed eyes and downward gazes evoking those martyred and the nation’s collective grief. Through this synthesis, Makki weaves a layered visual narrative that speaks simultaneously to Palestinian collective struggle and enduring maternal strength.