Khalid Al Banna United Arab Emirates, b. 1975

Khalid Al Banna (b. 1975, Sharjah) is a contemporary Emirati artist based in Sharjah, UAE. He has staked his place in the local art scene since the early 90s, renowned now for using collage as a primary technique to explore subject matter pertinent to the history and rapid transformations of his home country. Al Banna’s work is a reflection of his world view. Drawing primarily from elements of design, his canvas is the negative space and his art is life projected against it. His fascination with world-building, borrowed from the field of architecture, gave rise to his hallmark Black and White collages: a diaristic series of abstract paper works using ink and collage which foreground process. He weaves together vague depictions of his landscape, the past and the present as well as blurry scenes from world affairs as experienced through his status quo.