About

Biography
Shaima Saleh (b. 1995) is a Jeddah-based multimedia artist working with found objects, installation, text, and photography. She gathers materials from sidewalks, domestic interiors, abandoned spaces, and the remnants of houses, assembling them into installations that foreground the intimate and the overlooked. Her practice engages themes of time, home, and memory through processes of collecting, arranging, and writing. Shaima studied painting and fine arts at the University of Jeddah. Her work has been exhibited in Jeddah, Riyadh, and Cairo.

Artist Statement
My practice centres on everyday objects and ordinary materials, approaching them as carriers of memory, time, and lived experience. I collect found materials from domestic spaces, sidewalks, abandoned sites, and the remnants of houses, assembling them into installations that re-examine what is personal and intimate. Through careful acts of gathering, arranging, and reconsidering, my work attends to what is overlooked and quietly meaningful.
The home is a recurring point of departure in my practice, as a lived environment shaped by repetition, care, and subtle daily gestures rather than a fixed place. By combining found objects with writing, images, and hand-crafted interventions, I create spaces in which memory and presence coexist. Writing, whether my own or drawn from other sources, appears as notes, texts, or poetic fragments that extend the work beyond the visual, allowing language to participate in the material and temporal layers of each piece. Through sustained observation and attentive processes, my practice reflects on the passage of time and proposes gentle rituals of seeing, noticing, and caring.

Group Exhibitions
Echoes of the Familiar, Ithra Museum, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia — 2025 
Leftovers, Group Exhibition, Alestiraha, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — 2024 
Atmospheric: Objects of Narrative, Wasl Art Space, Cairo, Egypt — 2023
YSA: In the Midst of It All, Athr Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia — 2019
Residencies
Masaha Residency, Misk Art Institute, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — 2024
Intermix Residency, Visual Arts Commission, Ministry of Culture, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — 2022
Al-Balad Residency, Visual Arts Commission, Ministry of Culture, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia — 2022 
Interviews / Features
Young artists throw spotlight on Saudi Arabia’s social transformation — 2019
Published by: Arab News
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia