Sabrina Amrani is pleased to present Watch Before You Fall, the highly anticipated solo exhibition by Manal AlDowayan, which is her second exhibition at the gallery and the inaugural show of the second space of the gallery in Madrid.

AlDowayan is a prolific artist that works in multiple mediums and large-scale installations. She is known for her works that address invisibility and the status of women in Saudi Arabia. In this exhibition, AlDowayan widens her scope and looks at symbolism found in books written about women’s bodies. Using soft sculpture, ceramics, and fabric, AlDowayan describes this exhibition as “a space that stands between fear and activism, the artworks are symbols of the resilience and fragility of both the context and the artist.”

In Watch Before You Fall, AlDowayan attempts to fragment these symbols and reconstruct them to create a new form, a room full of ‘healing totems’ that alters perceptions and corrects memory. “My totems will be permanent memorials to stand against the attempt to reduce the complex into simple symbols”, says the artist. The forms developed for this collection of artworks are meant to initiate an internal and external dialogue about symbolism and feminism in the context of religion, politics, and media.

Embracing diverse media, Manal AlDowayan’s work encompasses black and white photography, sculpture, video, sound, neon and large-scale participatory installations. Her artistic practice revolves around themes of active forgetting, archives, and collective memory, with a large focus on the state of Saudi women and their representation. Manal AlDowayan born in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia in 1973, has shown in museums around the world and is part of major international collections, which include The British Museum, Los Angeles County Museum (LACMA), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and Mathaf Museum of Modern Arab Art, to name a few. She holds two masters degrees, one in Systems Design and the second in Contemporary Art Practice in the Public Sphere.