Ten artists from across the Gulf have been nominated for the second Richard Mille Art Prize. The full list can be found here.
Work by the artists is on show at Louvre Abu Dhabi until 19 March and the winner will be announced 20 March.
Nature is at the centre of Elizabeth Dorazio’s art.“I am always amazed by nature as something that is unpredictable, as well as the random elements that happen. This is what guides my work.” She collects images from the internet and scientific sources—the sky, mountains, lakes, plants and microscopic views of “things that we don’t even imagine exist, but they do.” These feed into a creative practice that uses many different forms of media, but is founded on drawing.
Dorazio (born in 1957 in Araguari, Brazil) started her career more than 30 years ago in her native country and has lived and exhibited all over the world. She moved to Abu Dhabi eight years ago and is astonished by the change she has seen over that time. “It’s such a young country, it’s amazing. Suddenly there is a new building, suddenly there is a new museum.”
She has recently taken the opportunity to go back to school, undertaking an MFA at New York University Abu Dhabi, which granted her access to the institution’s wood workshop. She was able to rescue pieces of scrap wood, which they were planning to throw away, and made them into a kind of collage, etching into the surfaces with a hot point. The piece exhibited at the Louvre Abu Dhabi is called Xylophone,part of a series inspired by the outdoors. “This is my attempt to remind people of the sounds of nature at a time when it is under threat,” Dorazio says.
Another body of work on show is her nature drawings, which are made using a traditionally unartistic medium: the ballpoint pen. Dorazio is able to summon an unexpected variety of lines and shades from this humble item, which she sometimes supplements by using that other office essential, Tipp-Ex. “It’s the most basic thing, [something that is] available everywhere. And wherever I am, I can find that ballpoint pen. It’s very intimate, it’s where I know I am really deeply observing something.”