Diana Al-Hadid, who received her MFA from the VCU Department of Sculpture + Extended Media, will speak at the VCU Student Commons Theater on Thursday, March 22, 2012 at 4:30 PM in conjunction with her exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts entitled “Diana Al-Hadid: Trace of the Fictional Third.” The show will be on view March 10–September 3, 2012.

Al-Hadid makes complex sculptures that seem in a state of flux, suggesting both incompletion and decay. Underlying her large-scale, baroque forms are a wide array of influences, including ancient Biblical and mythological narratives, Arab oral traditions, Gothic church construction, Western painting, Islamic ornamentation, and scientific advances in physics and astronomy. The exhibition features a single new monumental sculpture—Trace of a Fictional Third—that interweaves landscape, architecture, and the human figure. It is accompanied by a selection of new, heavily worked graphite drawings that shed light on Al-Hadid’s creative process.

BBC’s March 2012 coverage of Al-Hadid’s work shows her reconnection with her Syrian roots.

Photo Credit: Jason Wyche