Necks in Orbit

Looking back on her final years of university in New York, Dalia began working on Necks in Orbit as soon as she arrived back in Kuwait during winter break. A reflection of the bustling city in a post-pandemic era, the work captures a street intersection with scattered figures of varying sizes moving quickly about the scene.

“My days were quicker and denser, so a street intersection was the most appropriate setting to capture this. This splits the composition in four quadrants, allowing for the figures to approach multiple directions with no end point.”

It's easy to get lost in this work. Distorting our perception of distance, an abstracted approach to scale brings forward minute details. Limbs and joints are rendered in such a way that they act as extensions of their surrounding streets. It is difficult to determine whether a path goes uphill or downhill, or pinpoint where the viewer is positioned. These elements capture the artist’s memories of this accelerated time in her life.