In plain sight: ALIA ZAAL

Alia Zaal’s solo exhibition, In Plain Sight, consists of 26 artworks, including paintings on canvas, paper, and ceramic tiles that depict intimate fragments and extracts of landscapes beloved by the artist. Highlighting details of familiar plants, trees, and flora from the scrublands of Khawaneej, a suburb in Dubai, and the mangroves and mudflats of Abu Dhabi’s coastline, the works present a mediation on site-specificity and lived experience rather than romantic scenes of territory. For the artist, these fragments of the landscape serve a broader commentary on vision and memory.

Hailing an Islamic understanding of vision and optics, the artist, like the foundational Kitab al-Manazir (The Book of Optics) by Ibn al-Haytham, proposes that human vision is not a passive, objective reflection of the world but a human-centered creation and transmission. When Ibn al-Haytham broke away from ancient theories of sight in the 11th century, he argued that it is light — an unstable, external entity — that reflects the image into the eye, and that the human mind infers and decodes these images based on the atmospheric and environmental conditions.

Zaal activates this ancient theory through her process of creating these paintings, which derive from smartphone photos. By using the virtual screen and the digital form as an initial canvas, the imagery is subjected to intentional computer-generated modifications: contrast shifts, deliberate zooming, and localized pinching. These digital interventions, which act as the backdrop of these paintings, reinforce the idea that the landscape and human vision are not static or objective; their form, color, and clarity mutate constantly based on the angling of the sun, the moods and tribulations of the subject, and the quality of the surrounding ambiance and light. 

There is also an anecdotal, familiar interest in exploring human vision of the landscape: the artist’s father has some difficulty distinguishing between colors. Rather than stigmatising this quality, the artist foregrounds her father’s sight as a point of empathy and connection to broader theories of sight as shaded rather than total. The Gulf’s landscape, usually depicted as an external backdrop or a scenic, detached space where a human stands outside of and observes, comes undone.