In the global contemporary art world, very few artists can be described as genuinely bridging the ancient and the contemporary without the bridge feeling contrived. Dana Awartani is one of them.
A Palestinian-Saudi artist born in Jeddah in 1987, she has built an internationally recognised practice that honours the centuries-old traditions of Islamic geometry, illumination, and craft while using those traditions to address some of the most urgent concerns of the present moment: cultural destruction, sustainability, gender, healing, and the ongoing erasure of heritage through conflict.
Her work is simultaneously deeply learned and viscerally felt, a combination that has earned her a place in the world’s most prestigious museums, biennials, and private collections.
Awartani is one of the very few contemporary artists to hold an Ijazah in Islamic arts, a formal certification authorising her to teach sacred geometry, making her not merely a practitioner of traditional forms but an accredited custodian of them.
That depth of commitment to the intellectual and spiritual dimensions of Islamic art-making gives her work a quality of meditation and intention that sets it apart from more superficial engagement with decorative traditions. She is, in the fullest sense, an artist whose practice is also a form of prayer and remembrance.
In 2025, she was selected to represent Saudi Arabia at the 61st International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, running from May to November 2026, one of the most prestigious assignments in the global art world. It is a recognition that caps a decade of extraordinary achievement and confirms Awartani as one of the most significant artists of her generation.
Profile
| Full Name | Dana Awartani (Arabic: دانا عورتاني) |
| Born | 1987 |
| Age | 38 years old |
| Birthplace | Jeddah, Saudi Arabia |
| Nationality | Saudi Arabian (of Palestinian descent) |
| Occupation | Visual Artist |
Early Life
Dana Awartani was born in 1987 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to a Saudi mother and a Palestinian father. She grew up between Jeddah and her ancestral connections in the Levant, experiences that would later inform her deeply felt engagement with questions of heritage, displacement, and belonging.
From an early age she was surrounded by the intricate geometry of Islamic architecture and decoration that defines so much of the visual environment of the Arabian Peninsula, though like many of her contemporaries she was not always consciously aware of engaging with it as “art.” As she has reflected in interviews: “As Arabs we’re raised around this fine art, we’re surrounded by it in every corner but we’re not aware of it.”
Her journey as an artist has been, in part, a process of making that unconscious heritage conscious and finding ways to bring it into active dialogue with the present.
Education
Awartani pursued her formal education in London. In 2006, she completed a Foundation Degree in Art and Design at the Byam Shaw School of Art. She then earned a Bachelor of Fine Art from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 2009, one of the world’s leading art institutions, whose graduates have shaped contemporary visual culture across every discipline. Seeking a deeper grounding in the traditional arts that had begun to captivate her, she then completed a Master’s degree in Traditional Arts at The Prince’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts (now The King’s Foundation) in London in 2011.
At this institution, she studied stained glass, miniature painting, gilding, and a range of traditional techniques from cultures around the world. Seeking further mastery in manuscript illumination, a discipline not fully available at the school, she travelled to Istanbul, Turkey, to apprentice with an instructor who could teach her this centuries-old practice. She also holds an Ijazah in Islamic arts, a formal scholarly certification authorising her to transmit the teaching of sacred geometry.
Career
Dana Awartani’s artistic practice emerged from the intersection of her traditional training and her growing engagement with contemporary concerns. Rather than treating Islamic geometric art as a historical artefact to be preserved in aspic, she approaches it as a living language capable of generating new meanings in response to the crises and complexities of the present. Her work spans painting, sculpture, performance, installation, video art, and sand mosaic, and consistently treats historically situated and locally sourced materials as the medium through which contemporary urgencies are addressed.
Her early career included participation in the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013 through the Rhizoma project, a significant early exposure to the international art world at one of its most prominent stages. Her first solo exhibition was held at Athr Gallery in Jeddah in 2015. The same year, she participated in a residency at Delfina Foundation in London, deepening her connection to the international contemporary art community. Subsequent solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2017) and the Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah (2018) extended her reach into Western and pan-Arab institutional contexts.
The work that has most powerfully defined her recent career is the ongoing series begun in 2019: Come, let me heal your wounds. Let me mend your broken bones (2019–2024). Created through the ancient practice of darning, meticulously repairing torn silk with thread, the series uses the language of mending and repair as a meditation on cultural destruction, sustainability, and healing. The 2024 iteration of the work, installed at the 60th Venice Biennale (2024), was executed on medicinally dyed silk on a monumental scale and responded directly to the destruction in Gaza, placing traditional craft practice in dialogue with contemporary political catastrophe. The work attracted enormous critical attention and significantly raised Awartani’s international profile.
Other major recent works include Where Dwellers Lay (2022) and When the Dust of Conflict Settles (2023), which employ the languages of traditional architecture and craft to address the silencing of voices and the loss of knowledge through conflict and time. Her practice has been shown in group exhibitions at the British Museum (2021), the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (2022), the Louvre Abu Dhabi (2022), the Lyon Biennale (2022), the Sharjah Biennale (2023), the Asia Pacific Triennial (2024), and Manifesta 15 (2024), among many others. She lives and works between Jeddah and New York, embodying in her own daily life the cross-cultural dialogue that animates her art.
In late 2025, it was announced that Awartani will represent Saudi Arabia at the 61st International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, in 2026, curated by Antonia Carver with assistant curator Hafsa Alkhudairi. She will present a major new work for the Saudi Pavilion, a commission that represents the pinnacle of institutional recognition in the contemporary art world.
Honours & Recognitions
- National Cultural Award, Ministry of Culture of Saudi Arabia, 2021
- Instituto Sacatar Residency Award, Sesc_Videobrasil, 2020
- Artist in Residence, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, 2020
- Shortlisted, Richard Mille Prize, Louvre Abu Dhabi, 2022
- Shortlisted, High Line Plinth Commission, New York, 2024
- Artist in Residence, Delfina Foundation, London, 2015
- Selected to represent Saudi Arabia at the 61st Venice Biennale, 2026
- Holder of an Ijazah in Islamic arts (sacred geometry)
Social Media
Dana Awartani maintains a presence on social media and through her gallery representations, with her work regularly featured by major institutions and publications.
- Website: danaawartani.com
- Instagram: @danaawartani
Personal Life
Dana Awartani divides her time between Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and New York, United States. She has described her artistic practice as deeply spiritual: “Islamic Art is firstly not made for the sake of making art. It is a sacred spiritual practice that is used as a way to worship God and for God. It teaches one sabr (patience) and respect and as an Islamic artist, my work is a form of prayer and dhikr (remembrance).” This integration of artistic practice and spiritual life gives her work a contemplative quality that is recognisable even before one knows anything about the intentions behind it. Details of her personal relationships are not in the public record, as she keeps her private life separate from her artistic identity.
Net Worth
Specific net worth figures for Dana Awartani are not publicly available. Her income is derived from the sale of artworks through gallery representation (including Lisson Gallery and Sfeir-Semler Gallery), institutional commissions, residency awards, and speaking engagements at art institutions and conferences.
As an artist of her international profile, with work in major museum collections and representation by leading commercial galleries, her market position is understood to be significant and growing, particularly following the heightened visibility generated by her 2024 Venice Biennale installation.
Notable Works & Contributions
- Come, let me heal your wounds. Let me mend your broken bones (2019–2024), ongoing darning series; major installation at 60th Venice Biennale
- I Went Away and Forgot You. A While Ago I Remembered. I Remembered I’d Forgotten You. I Was Dreaming (2019), sand and natural pigment installation with video
- Where Dwellers Lay (2022)
- When the Dust of Conflict Settles (2023)
- New commission for Saudi Pavilion, 61st Venice Biennale, 2026
- Solo exhibitions: Arnolfini, Bristol (2025); Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide (2024); Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2017); Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah (2018); Athr Gallery, Jeddah (2015)
- Group exhibitions: British Museum; Hirshhorn Museum; Louvre Abu Dhabi; Sharjah Biennale; Lyon Biennale; Venice Biennale; Asia Pacific Triennial; and many others
Conclusion
Dana Awartani occupies a rare position in the contemporary art world: an artist who is both deeply traditional and entirely contemporary, whose reverence for the past is matched by her urgency about the present.
Her practice, rooted in the discipline of Islamic geometric art and the patience of traditional craft, addresses the largest questions facing her generation: the destruction of cultural heritage, the erasure of memory by conflict, the possibility of healing, and the responsibility of the living to the voices that have been silenced. These are not small themes, and she brings to them both a scholar’s rigour and an artist’s intuition.
As she prepares to represent Saudi Arabia at the 2026 Venice Biennale, Dana Awartani stands at the threshold of what promises to be the most significant chapter of an already extraordinary career. For anyone seeking to understand the most vital currents in contemporary art from the Arab world, and indeed in global contemporary art more broadly, her work is essential.