IYAD Qanazea Gallery in Abu Dhabi showcases Lost and Found, a solo exhibition by Tala Worrell, a multidisciplinary artist whose practice is shaped by her Lebanese-American heritage and upbringing between New York and the UAE. The exhibition unfolds across material, memory, and meaning, drawing viewers into Worrell’s deeply personal yet politically aware visual world.
At the heart of Lost and Found is an exploration of duality: East and West, sacred and secular, permanence and fragility. Worrell combines lush oils and industrial paints with ingredients such as za’atar, sesame seeds, lace, mirrors, and henna. Each medium is granted equal narrative weight in a tactile, layered process that evokes both domestic ritual and aesthetic experimentation. Her interest in “democratic” material use challenges hierarchies within art-making and cultural storytelling alike.
Worrell’s new body of work reflects a bold synthesis of personal and collective memory. Through saturated palettes, reflective surfaces, and fragmentary forms, she invites reflection on the tensions of cultural hybridity of being both within and outside, local and elsewhere.
This exhibition follows Worrell’s solo presentations in Los Angeles, New York, and Sydney, reaffirming her place as a distinct voice among artists working between geographies. In Lost and Found, the in-betweenness becomes the terrain of creativity itself, a space where fragments become forms and dissonance gives rise to resonance.