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Lot Essay
“Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you. Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion. Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.” — Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi
Dana Awartani’s You Are the Universe in Ecstatic Motion I, from her When Fire Loves Water series, represents a moment of pause and reflection within the artist’s wider practice. In this minimalist and monochromatic body of work, Awartani adopts a more restrained visual language, returning to one of the fundamental sources of her artistic language: Sufi mysticism. Awartani describes these paintings as ‘acts of meditation’ and ‘moments of contemplation’, emerging from the daily rigour of her practice. Stripped of elaborate ornament and colour, the present work distils her longstanding engagement with sacred geometry to one of its most elemental forms: the circle.
Created on handmade paper produced from leftover fibres from textile mills, the work brings together several concerns that recur throughout Awartani’s practice: materiality, traditional modes of making and the possibilities of transformation. The irregular, tactile quality of the handmade surface provides an organic ground for the precision of the geometry drawn upon it. The paper itself carries traces of an earlier material existence, its discarded fibers reconstituted into the support for a new work. This process of reuse introduces a quiet material counterpart to the conceptual structure of the composition, in which repetition and return become generative rather than finite.
By returning to the purity of this form, Awartani approaches drawing as a conscious act of repetition and introspection. The geometry is not simply an image to be contemplated after its completion; its construction is itself part of the meditative process. The repeated gesture becomes a means of concentration, transforming the disciplined act of making into a space for reflection. In this sense, sacred geometry operates not merely as a formal vocabulary but as a practice through which order, contemplation and spiritual thought become intertwined.
This principle is given visual form through the continuous, swirling movement of the present composition. Concentric lines appear to expand and contract across the surface, their thickness shifting as they move through successive rings. The eye is carried around rather than across the work: there is no obvious point of departure or conclusion, only a circular movement that repeatedly returns towards its source. Despite this sense of motion, the composition retains a striking stillness, its rhythmic repetition assuming an almost meditative quality.
This circular movement also resonates with tawaf, the ritual circumambulation of the Kaaba, an image to which Awartani references in other series within her oeuvre. The act of circling a fixed centre becomes a powerful expression of the relationship between multiplicity and unity: innumerable individual bodies participate in a shared movement around a singular point. In You Are the Universe in Ecstatic Motion I, the repeated orbital lines can similarly be understood as alluding to this movement, reinforcing the work’s meditation upon tawhid. Rather than progressing towards an endpoint, the composition revolves around a centre, reconciling perpetual motion with constancy and the individual with the whole.
The title, You Are the Universe in Ecstatic Motion I, extends this relationship between movement and unity beyond the geometry of the composition. Drawn from words attributed to the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, it evokes an understanding of the individual not as separate from the universe, but as contained within and inseparable from a greater whole. The apparent paradox between the ‘ecstatic motion’ of the title and the contemplative stillness of the work is particularly resonant: its lines remain in constant visual movement, yet their repetition is held within the unity of the circle. The individual, the circle and the universe thus become interconnected expressions of the same principle.
Born in Jeddah in 1987, Dana Awartani is a Palestinian-Saudi artist living and working between Jeddah and New York. She received her BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, London, before completing a MA in Traditional Arts at The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts. This dual education—between contemporary fine art and the rigorous study of traditional practices—has become fundamental to an artistic language that engages with geometry, architecture and craft not as static forms of cultural heritage, but as living systems capable of adaptation and renewal.
Dana Awartani represented Saudi Arabia at this year's Venice Biennale, following her participation in the main exhibition of the 60th Venice Biennale, where her installation was presented at the Arsenale. In 2025, she presented her first institutional solo exhibition in Europe at Arnolfini, Bristol, while her work has also been shown at institutions including the Institute of Arab and Islamic Art, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; the British Museum, London; Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; Pera Museum, Istanbul; The Mosaic Rooms, London and Louvre Abu Dhabi. She has participated in international exhibitions and biennials, including the Bukhara Biennial, Sharjah Biennial 15, the Lyon Biennale and the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, and is a recipient of the National Cultural Award from the Ministry of Culture of Saudi Arabia.
Dana Awartani’s You Are the Universe in Ecstatic Motion I, from her When Fire Loves Water series, represents a moment of pause and reflection within the artist’s wider practice. In this minimalist and monochromatic body of work, Awartani adopts a more restrained visual language, returning to one of the fundamental sources of her artistic language: Sufi mysticism. Awartani describes these paintings as ‘acts of meditation’ and ‘moments of contemplation’, emerging from the daily rigour of her practice. Stripped of elaborate ornament and colour, the present work distils her longstanding engagement with sacred geometry to one of its most elemental forms: the circle.
Created on handmade paper produced from leftover fibres from textile mills, the work brings together several concerns that recur throughout Awartani’s practice: materiality, traditional modes of making and the possibilities of transformation. The irregular, tactile quality of the handmade surface provides an organic ground for the precision of the geometry drawn upon it. The paper itself carries traces of an earlier material existence, its discarded fibers reconstituted into the support for a new work. This process of reuse introduces a quiet material counterpart to the conceptual structure of the composition, in which repetition and return become generative rather than finite.
By returning to the purity of this form, Awartani approaches drawing as a conscious act of repetition and introspection. The geometry is not simply an image to be contemplated after its completion; its construction is itself part of the meditative process. The repeated gesture becomes a means of concentration, transforming the disciplined act of making into a space for reflection. In this sense, sacred geometry operates not merely as a formal vocabulary but as a practice through which order, contemplation and spiritual thought become intertwined.
This principle is given visual form through the continuous, swirling movement of the present composition. Concentric lines appear to expand and contract across the surface, their thickness shifting as they move through successive rings. The eye is carried around rather than across the work: there is no obvious point of departure or conclusion, only a circular movement that repeatedly returns towards its source. Despite this sense of motion, the composition retains a striking stillness, its rhythmic repetition assuming an almost meditative quality.
This circular movement also resonates with tawaf, the ritual circumambulation of the Kaaba, an image to which Awartani references in other series within her oeuvre. The act of circling a fixed centre becomes a powerful expression of the relationship between multiplicity and unity: innumerable individual bodies participate in a shared movement around a singular point. In You Are the Universe in Ecstatic Motion I, the repeated orbital lines can similarly be understood as alluding to this movement, reinforcing the work’s meditation upon tawhid. Rather than progressing towards an endpoint, the composition revolves around a centre, reconciling perpetual motion with constancy and the individual with the whole.
The title, You Are the Universe in Ecstatic Motion I, extends this relationship between movement and unity beyond the geometry of the composition. Drawn from words attributed to the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi, it evokes an understanding of the individual not as separate from the universe, but as contained within and inseparable from a greater whole. The apparent paradox between the ‘ecstatic motion’ of the title and the contemplative stillness of the work is particularly resonant: its lines remain in constant visual movement, yet their repetition is held within the unity of the circle. The individual, the circle and the universe thus become interconnected expressions of the same principle.
Born in Jeddah in 1987, Dana Awartani is a Palestinian-Saudi artist living and working between Jeddah and New York. She received her BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, London, before completing a MA in Traditional Arts at The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts. This dual education—between contemporary fine art and the rigorous study of traditional practices—has become fundamental to an artistic language that engages with geometry, architecture and craft not as static forms of cultural heritage, but as living systems capable of adaptation and renewal.
Dana Awartani represented Saudi Arabia at this year's Venice Biennale, following her participation in the main exhibition of the 60th Venice Biennale, where her installation was presented at the Arsenale. In 2025, she presented her first institutional solo exhibition in Europe at Arnolfini, Bristol, while her work has also been shown at institutions including the Institute of Arab and Islamic Art, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; the British Museum, London; Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; Pera Museum, Istanbul; The Mosaic Rooms, London and Louvre Abu Dhabi. She has participated in international exhibitions and biennials, including the Bukhara Biennial, Sharjah Biennial 15, the Lyon Biennale and the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, and is a recipient of the National Cultural Award from the Ministry of Culture of Saudi Arabia.