Ahaad Alamoudi: Sunkissed

Across the Gulf, the malleable sand bears witness to cycles of construction and redevelopment as solar pressure catalyses decades of futuristic mega-projects to ‘green’ the arid terrain. The motifs of the sun and its intense heat as well as the sand and its pervasive orange hue often serve to represent and condense the Gulf’s complex ecologies and aspirations. 

Drawing upon these stereotypical symbols, Sunkissed examines how collective identity and visual expression intersect, emerge and unfold amid the region’s rapidly transforming landscape. Comprising a selection of recent and newly commissioned works by Jeddah-based artist Ahaad Alamoudi, the exhibition speaks to strategies of communication, both fluid and fragmented, between speculative futures and venerated histories. 

Alamoudi’s vivid snapshots of contemporary Khaleeji aesthetics are tinged with humour and a pronounced fluency in pop culture. Within the artist’s cosmology, viral memes, talking falcons, automated toy cars and insect light traps all function as tools to process accelerating change. Together, the works explore how the overarching desire for development is absorbed and rearticulated in everyday life.

Sunkissed traces how acts of mimicry, metamorphosis and mutation expose the elastic dialogue between state and subject as well as person and object. Alamoudi hones in on personal gestures, habitual behaviours and material culture, revealing the circulation and continual renegotiation of these narratives within the collective.

Playfully capturing the give-and-take between developmental goals and their real-world manifestations, the exhibition offers insights into the whimsical, and often contradictory, processes shaping Khaleeji cultural life. Through this lens, Alamoudi considers how momentum towards the future materialises within evolving cultural and societal landscapes. 

Sunkissed is curated by Amal Al Ali, Curatorial Assistant at Sharjah Art Foundation.