Sarah-Mecca Abdourahman is a multidisciplinary artist working in video, painting, and installation. She was born and raised in Ottawa and found her way to the arts from her mother, being an educator at the National Gallery of Canada. By spending her summers and March breaks at the National Gallery camps, she found a love for the arts. These experiences inspired her to become a full-time artist from a young age.
She has been awarded the Salt Spring National Art Prize Joan McConnel Award and is a recipient of the Canada Council of the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council grant. Her work is held in various private collections, including the City of Ottawa Art Collection and the Art Volt Collection. Most recently, she completed a three-month residency with Residency Unlimited (RU) in Brooklyn, NY.
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Which ‘hood are you in?
I’m in NDG! I’ve been living in the neighbourhood for a couple of years, and I really love it. However, in the last year, my art practice has become nomadic from travelling back to back for artist residencies. So, my next residency this summer will be in the Hudson Valley at Wassaic Project.
What do you do?
My travels through artist residencies led me to a new body of work as I began printing on blankets, exploring collages, and creating 3D installation paintings.
I explore memory, caretaking, and the notion of home. My practice raises the importance of storytelling as a form of resistance and how care and self-preservation can act as modes to reject oppressive systems. These vibrant large-scale compositions, which appear to be childlike and playful, allow the works to be approachable yet confrontational.
With family archives and personal references to childhood nostalgia, my works aspire to nurture moments of the past. They allow me to heal through joy and humour and to care for my younger self through a lens of empathy.
What are you currently working on?
I’m currently working on a series titled Praises Unsung, a travelling solo exhibition that started at FOFA Gallery and will be heading to the Ottawa School of Art. A series about eldest daughters, the mothers in my family, and intergenerational cycles of caretaking.
I started referencing the bedroom as a safe haven to decompress, and I found an interest in compositions crossing the line between haunting and playful by acknowledging the bedroom as also being the location of nightmares.
As a child, my bedroom was my favourite space to heal, but it became a place of fear during the night, being the location of my recurring nightmares. This haunting feeling that permeates my work serves as a metaphor for unrest. However, it’s been essential to include the balance of humour and playfulness to nurture my inner child.
Where can we find your work?
Praises Unsung will be on view at the Ottawa Art Gallery this summer! The opening is on July 25th, 5-8 pm. The show is on view until August 30th, 2024.
You can also find me on Instagram and visit my website.
