Dala Nasser
b. 1990 TYRE
Based between LEBANON/UK
As an artist working through abstraction and alternative forms of image-making, Dala integrates sound, performance and film in her practice, but remains quintessentially a painter as she thinks through abstraction and the medium’s most elementary materials: fabric, pigments, stretcher bars, mark making. Dala’s indexical paintings of land, made through direct contact on location throughout the Western Asia, stand in opposition to the orientalist histories offered by colonial landscape painting. The works embody political and environmental conditions using landscape itself as the medium.
Considering materials as witnesses, Nasser has developed a growing body of work that foregrounds non-claimed histories, ecologies of slow violence, colonial theft, and infrastructural failure in times and places where human language has been rendered insufficient or out of reach.
Solo Exhibitions
2026
Untitled, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK.
2025
Untitled, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
2023
Adonis River, Renaissance Society, Chicago, USA
2022
Red in Tooth, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, Germany
Time spent without its flow, V.O Curations, London, UK
2021
In the Purple, Deborah Schamoni, Munich, Germany
Group Exhibitions
2025
Aichi Triennale 2025: A Time Between Ashes and Roses, Nagoya, Japan
Arte Povera A New Chapter, Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki, Finland
TBA-US
TBA-UK
2024
Siren Songs, Villa Medici, Rome, Italy
9th Biennial of Painting: Stories from the Ground, Museum Dhondt Dhaens, Deurle, Belgium
Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing, Whitney Museum of Art, New York, USA
Diriyah Biennale 2024: After Rain, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
2023
Thinking Historically in the Present, Sharjah Biennial 15, Sharjah, UAE
Un lieu de mémoire : Contextes d’existence, Musee d’art Joliette, Canada
Art Basel, Deborah Schamoni booth, Basel, Switzerland
Un lieu de mémoire : Contextes d’existence, Musée d'art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, Canada
No Title, Chapter NY, New York, USA
My Past is a Foreign Country, Chios, Greece
Old sky, old dirt, new grass, Travesia Cuatro, Madrid, Spain
2022
58th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA
Your flesh as my greatest poem, Antenna Space, Shanghai, China
The Dead Shall be Raised, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
2021
How will it end, Villa Empain Brussels, Belgium
In Praise of Shadows, Yale School of Art, New Haven, USA
In Praise of Shadows, Lyles & King, New York, USA
By Any Means, VO Curations, London, UK
2020
Dala Nasser & Anne Lowe, L’inconnue, Paris, France
24 Hour Artist fundraiser for Beirut, organized by Habibi Collective
To Thomas, La Box, Bourges, France
2019
Homeworks 8 I will return, and I will be millions, Beirut Art Center, Beirut, Lebanon
Surface Tension, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE
Touche, Beirut Art Center, Beirut, Lebanon
Lateral Recovery Position, Betonsalon, Paris, France
2018
Body, L’INCONNUE, Montreal, Canada
This is Water, That is Earth, Marfa Projects, Beirut, Lebanon
Surface Work, Victoria Miro, London, UK
The Pain of Others, Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
2017
An unpredictable expression of human potential – ACT II of the Sharjah Biennial 13, Beirut Art Center, Beirut, Lebanon
Ghosting of Beings and Worlds, Greynoise Gallery, Dubai, UAE
La Diablesse, 14 Micawber Street, London, UK
2016
32nd Salon D’Automne, Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon
Education
2019-2021 MFA Painting/Printmaking, Yale School of Art, Yale University, New Haven, USA
2012-2016 BFA Fine Arts, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London, UK
2011-2012 Foundation Diploma in Fine Arts, Central Saint Martins University of Art and Design, London, UK
Awards / Residencies
2022 Artissima Isola Sicilia Prize winner
2021 Artist in Residence, V.O Curations, London UK
2019 Artist in Residence at Gapado AIR, Jeju Island South Korea
2017 Sursock Museum 32nd Salon D’Automne Emerging Artist Prize, Beirut LEbanon
2017 Artist in Residence at Ashkal Alwan, Beirut Lebanon
2016 Boise Travel Scholarship, London UK
Lectures / Teaching
2021 Oxford Brookes, Oxford, UK
2020 Teaching Assistant at Yale University, New Haven USA
2018 American University of Beirut, Beirut Lebanon