Meet the 17-year-old Dubai sculptor shaping emotions into clay

Khaleej Times

2 days ago

In a city synonym with gloss and grandeur, it's easy to overlook the quiet power of something imperfect. But for 17-year-old ceramic sculptor Samaira, imperfection is the point.
'People assume at my age, emotions can't be this complex,' she says, her tone as calm as it is self-assured. 'But teenagers notice a lot. We're constantly observing what people avoid saying.'
Samaira doesn't just notice these emotions—she sculpts them. Grief, detachment, self-sabotage, psychological tension. These aren't just themes in her portfolio; they're the emotional clay that binds her work together. Her hand-built sculptures—often raw, cracked, and human—don't ask for attention. They command presence.
'Sculpture is different from drawing or painting because it's physical. The clay won't stay how you want it,' she says. 'It forces you to respond emotionally and intuitively. That's what I love.'
Art with a pulse
Born and raised in Dubai, Samaira grew up around the city's pursuit of perfection. But it's precisely this drive for polish and poise that she wants to challenge.
'There isn't always space here for people to openly talk about how they're really feeling,' she explains. 'That's probably why I use art as a space to explore the things people don't always say out loud.'
Her process is deeply reflective. Loose sketches come first, followed by hours of hand-shaping, carving, and staging—each movement deliberate yet intuitive. Unlike most artists her age, she doesn't chase the idea of 'beauty' in a traditional sense. If anything, she disrupts it.
One of her recent sculptures—a human head originally intended to feature horns as a symbol of self-sabotage—ended up with a pronounced crack across the top after the horns broke mid-process. Instead of starting over, she leaned into the damage.
'The piece became more powerful without the horns,' she says. 'The crack on the head felt like a wound caused from within. That shift made the story stronger.'
Texture, too, is intentional. Smooth surfaces often represent emotional detachment; raw patches and visible fingerprints signal tension or vulnerability. Her work rarely features colour—clay, she believes, doesn't need embellishment.
'Once I've captured what I need to emotionally, I stop," she says. "Especially with faces—overworking ruins the expression. Sometimes the emotion lies in the flaws.'
Animal imagery has also crept into her recent pieces. A fascination with psychology and symbolism led her to experiment with combining human and animal forms—spiders, horns, tentacles—as metaphors for internal struggle and entrapment.
'We assign human traits to animals all the time: aggression, fear, survival. Combining the two makes people pause and reflect. That discomfort is useful—it mirrors how we bury our darker emotions.'
Beyond the studio
For Samaira, art isn't just self-expression—it's a platform for change. One of her earlier sculptures explored marine pollution through the lens of human vulnerability. While working on it, she led a campaign within her school to reduce plastic waste from the canteen.
'It wasn't just a concept I sculpted. It was something I lived,' she says. 'I think young artists today have a responsibility to speak to what matters.'
This summer, she's taking that responsibility further—beyond galleries and school corridors. Samaira is headed to India, where she'll spend part of her break hosting art workshops for children and young adults.
She is set to launch Abilasha, a program she founded to empower underprivileged students through clay art. Abilasha means 'ambition' in Punjabi, and the entire purpose of the initiative, she says, is to give students the one thing that is often out of reach in their environment: a sense of possibility.
'I've realised how many young people struggle to talk about their emotions. Art gives them a way in,' she says. 'The goal is to introduce clay not just as a craft, but as a tool for emotional exploration.'
It's a full-circle moment—taking something deeply personal and making it public, generative, and communal.
In Dubai, Samaira is part of a quiet countercurrent—one that doesn't seek attention through rebellion, but through radical honesty.
'I'm not trying to shock people,' she says. 'If someone feels something when they see the work—even if it's discomfort—that's the point. That means the emotion is real.'
Samaira continues to explore the intersections of mental health, symbolism, and form, and her sculptures offer a refreshing alternative to the curated perfection of social feeds and skyline silhouettes. They invite reflection. They allow stillness. And most of all, they give form to the feelings we often leave unspoken.
'Art can be more than something you look at,' she adds. 'It can be something that holds space for conversations we're not having elsewhere.'