Sheikha Maryam bint Sultan Al Nahyan is a visual artist and photographer. She was born in 1989 in Abu-Dhabi, The United Arab Emirates. She draws inspiration for her work from everyday experiences as well as her spiritual life. Through her private aesthetic Maryam perceptively communicates her ideas and concepts. Maryam seeks to translate fragile realities through drawing, painting, mixed media and photography She recently graduated from the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises at Zayed University.

Artist’s Statement

Mirari. To see a mirage, a not uncommon experience in the UAE, is to examine the blurred lines between reality and fantasy.

Sometimes things remain unseen, and beneath their surface there echoes a more honest vision of what is really there. This work examines our perceptions of what is apparent and what may lie beneath the surface, and how distance can alter these perceptions to modify what we truly perceive.
Design Concept

The work consists of triangular shaped mirrors clustered together. There are three triangular shapes, each repeated ten times. Each of the thirty mirrors is one meter in size and positioned on a metal stand. The stand can be adjusted allowing for the mirror to be angled in any direction.

As the viewer approaches the work, the form takes on new qualities and an altered relationship with its environment and surroundings. True to the shape shifting nature of the mirage, the outline of the cluster of triangles can be altered depending on the location, environment, the light, day and the season.