In the Space of Becoming: by Alia Hussain Lootah

“A form is never finished, only paused.” - Alia Lootah

Alia Lootah In her new body of work, Alia Lootah deepens her longstanding inquiry into form, material, and transformation, bringing painting, drawing, and sculpture into a shared vocabulary of movement. At the center of her practice is an attentiveness to shapes and their capacity to shift, lengthen, collapse, or reappear in altered configurations. Lootah approaches form as something living, animated by internal rhythms, always in transition and always approaching a state of becoming without ever fully arriving.

The works rest in a delicate threshold between recognition and ambiguity, allowing meaning to surface quietly and gradually, rather than through immediate clarity. Her sculptural language carries this sensibility forward with intention and restraint. Moving fluidly between drawing, weaving, and sculpture, Lootah explores how simple materials can generate complexity through repetition and touch. The knitted works, which anchor the exhibition, embody this relationship between gesture and form. For Lootah, knitting is not simply craft or method, but a meditative act shaped by rhythm, memory, and the slow accretion of labor. The pliant surfaces interact dynamically with the solidity of their pedestals, which function as active counterforces attempting to stabilize structures that inherently resist containment. This interplay between softness and firmness, fluidity and structure, reflects the larger dualities that animate her practice. Everyday materials ground Lootah’s approach, bringing the works into conversation with the textures and gestures of domestic labor and lived experience.

These materials lend the sculptures a sense of familiarity, yet the forms that emerge remain open and unresolved. They hover in a state of quiet becoming, suggestive without being literal, intimate without being defined. Their shifting character invites viewers to engage with them not through immediate recognition, but through observation, patience, and sensitivity to subtle change.Across the exhibition, her paintings and drawings echo the internal movement found within the sculptural works. Lines circle back on themselves, shapes fragment and return, and gestures migrate fluidly across mediums. These exchanges create a subtle and continuous dialogue between two-and three-dimensional forms, highlighting the ways in which ideas shift as they move from one material state to another. The works trace the migration of form as it repeats, mutates, and adjusts its meaning depending on the material that holds it. 

The exhibition also offers space to reflect on the relationship between repetition and transformation. Through the steady logic of accumulated gestures, Lootah suggests that change does not always occur in dramatic shifts, but often through small and nearly imperceptible alterations. The works embody this quiet form of evolution, reminding us that transformation can be gentle, persistent, and intertwined with the rhythms of everyday life. In this sense, the exhibition becomes not only a study of material form, but also an observation of time, labor, and attention. Taken together, Alia Lootah’s latest works articulate a nuanced and poetic understanding of transformation and the internal life of forms. Through the interplay of material, structure, and gesture, she constructs a visual language that is grounded in the everyday yet oriented toward something more expansive and unseen. The exhibition encourages viewers to slow their pace, to attend to the subtle shifts embedded within each work, and to witness the quiet beauty of forms continually unfolding. 

Essay Written by: Shilan Samaei Director