Ayah Dhafer is an Emirati artist based in Abu Dhabi. She is renowned for creating visual art and paintings. Her alma mater complements her career; Dhafer studied Visual Arts at the College of Arts and Design, Zayed University. Upon completing her studies, Dhafer introduced the Lest We Forget (LWF) initiative together with her professor and colleagues. LWF is supported by and a part of The Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan foundation, Abu Dhabi.
Dhafer’s work is nostalgic of the Emirati culture and the olden days. The artworks are carefully created using specific colors and materials that do justice to the stories and emotions that she wants to convey through her pieces. Recently, she has started using certain colors in her artworks that portray particular human characteristics, giving her work an air of realism. Dhafer uses wood as her primary medium. She prefers painting on wooden surfaces because, to her, wood is a material that is physically hard yet soft; a characteristic she finds common among the people of the stories she paints. Moreover, to Dhafer, wood signifies her as a person and her country.
The LWF initiative was formed with the purpose of archiving the Emirati culture and heritage. Working with LWF gave Dhafer access to the deep, rich history of her homeland and serves as an inspiration behind her artworks. According to her, she translates nostalgic stories of the past of the Emirati people into visual art.