A visual artist from Egypt living in Dubai with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts (Mural Art Major, Alexandria University), Sarah Shoushan has been creating mosaics out of glass for over ten years.
Her preferred art form is stained glass. Sara uses glass to draw. She does both huge and tiny mosaic artworks, as well as cutting-edge and one-of-a-kind furniture. She participated in several national and local group exhibitions, both international and local, like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Sarah has a unique mosaic style that doesn’t adhere to any rules when she cuts and assembles her pieces. Sarah says, “I always hear comments from fellow artists that my style is very unique. It just comes this way for me. I go with the flow as if I’m holding a brush and just painting. ” This journey wasn’t simple because, in her fine arts studies at the university, she was expected to follow the rules, and she tried her best to do so. “But I always fell back into my ways, or actually my zone, where I find my utmost happiness, and the results never disappoint because that’s what I had in mind,” Sarah expresses.
When Sarah notices the viewers’ interest and gets asked how she created her pieces, what materials she used, and how; she is reassured that her message has been effectively conveyed. One of her greatest accomplishments is when her artwork gets mistaken for a painting from afar. Since her work is typically made up of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of tiny pieces that are assembled to form the final artwork, viewers can only distinguish it once they close; she thrives on that element of surprise.
Sarah is currently working on a new series that she has always wanted to create but was always sidetracked by other tasks. It was inspired by her work ‘the World Through Their Eyes,’ “where I had put together a collage of children’s little drawings that were made by my students when I used to teach art back in my home country, Egypt.” informs Sarah. The mural that she still holds dearest to her heart was then created by her using a collage made of several types of stained glass. By incorporating tiny fragments of the kids’ individual artwork into glass mosaics, she is bringing the project to a close.