Born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, Sara Al Dabbagh received her BFA from the University of Arizona in 2022. Sara creates artwork that pushes the boundaries of what is considered contemporary painting and drawing. She often combines mediums and found objects and innovates her application process to go beyond the means of traditional and conventional approaches. Sara often uses three-dimensional texture as an integral piece of her artwork to bridge the gap between herself and her audience.
Sara’s work embodies her identity as a Middle Eastern Iraqi woman raised in Southern Arizona. She uses abstraction of the digital and physical world to describe her experience being split between two cultures. Through this process, Sara establishes a new identity for herself that fuses the two. These surrealistic spaces are crafted so that her audience can discover their own identities within the new realm. Sara’s artwork has been shown across four exhibitions in Southern Arizona in galleries such as the University of Arizona Museum of Art (UAMA), University of Arizona School of Art Joseph Gross and Lionel Rombach, and Subspace.
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"I am a first-generation Iraqi-American born and raised in Tucson, AZ, whose dual cultural background has inspired my works. My works showcase the multicultural navigation of my identity and culture, merging into a synonymous entity. My works deal with the past, present, and future representations involving the difficulty of being a US citizen but still not being seen as one. My experiences with the physical and digital world have shaped the creation of many of my pieces.
I utilize a mixture of found objects and alternative painting techniques to create texture and motifs. My creations often feature three-dimensional appliques that expect the viewers to interact and fill the gap between themselves and the surface. My works are intended to invoke the audience to explore their own relationship to their culture, in relation to their generational trauma involving exploitation and erasure."
Sara Al Dabbagh (2022)
