Art exhibition: Shahinda Abdalla – Phases of Love

Primarily motivated by a need to understand her internal world, in 2015, Shahinda began to paint as a way to reconnect. Much of her work is therefore psychological, experimental and contemplative. As her practice has gone through many stages, she too has come to appreciate the journey her art has taken her through. Though often easier to describe herself as a painter, she considers herself a visual essayist. A writer of pictures. Not just any pictures, but pictures of the mind.

Born in 1992 in Cairo to Egyptian-Sudanese parents and travelling around as a child, the question of belonging was central to her experience of the world and consequently seeps into her work. The question of how we create homes that foster not only an external sense of belonging for a child but an internal sense of belonging within them is at the heart of this exhibition.

Phases of Love is a series of six portraits of a couple who are pregnant in the months leading up to the birth of their first child. It is an attempt to capture the miraculous process that happens as a new family is born and a new home is made. Currently, Shahinda studies and lives in the UK. She is a nursery practitioner and a student at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.

Visits available on appointment – please contact art@tavi-port.nhs.uk