The French government honoured Emirati artist Alia Zaal Lootah last month for her artistic work boosting UAE-France cooperation. On May 30, 2022, at an official ceremony at the French Embassy in the UAE, Xavier Chatel, the French Ambassador to the UAE, presented Lootah with the insignia of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters.
On Monday, Lootah, a visual artist, curator, and researcher, stated, “I am very proud to be knighted by the French Ambassador Xavier Chatel on behalf of the French government.”
Lootah is a multidisciplinary artist who investigates memory, history, and her surrounds’ shifting urban and natural environments. Her work frequently traces the interplay between digital and analogue as she investigates the connection between visual and perception.
Her works are inspired by personal images of interiors, landscapes, and scenes from her visual journal. The transfer of images from one media to another is viewed as a metaphor for the perceptions and filters that memories pass through.
According to the French government, her artistic efforts have elevated the bilateral connection between the two countries to an unprecedented degree.
The Emirati artist was heavily involved in the Franco-Emirati Cultural Program, a large-scale initiative to prepare for and follow the opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum, which led to her curating two major shows. During the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s inaugural year in 2017-2018, she curated the first modern art show.
In the style of Modernist artists from Cézanne to Monet, she merges various image-recording technologies such as photography, film, and sketching with ‘plein-air painting.’