In Abu Dhabi, inside the light-filled space of Iris Projects, Emirati artist Shamsa Al Omaira transforms loss into something quietly powerful. Her first solo exhibition in more than a decade, Hard like Tears, Soft like Glass, is not simply a show — it is an emotional landscape built from memories, fragments, and healing.

This exhibition asks a simple but profound question:
Can art hold what the heart cannot?

From Personal Loss to Collective Emotion

Al Omaira’s work is rooted in her own life. During the Covid lockdown, she lost both her brother and her uncle. Forced into stillness, she confronted grief in a way she never had before. Instead of turning away, she chose to document it.

Her art maps emotional patterns — how pain settles into the body, how memory repeats, how love remains even after absence.

Domestic Objects, Reimagined

The materials she uses come directly from her upbringing:

• childhood bedding

• heirloom glass

• kitchen moulds

• stitched lullabies

• broken ceramics

These once comforting objects are transformed into artworks that feel both familiar and unsettling. What once brought safety now carries vulnerability — just like memory itself.

Beauty That Hurts

Some of the most striking works resemble jewel-like desserts made from resin and glass. At first glance, they appear sweet and delicate. But beneath their glossy surfaces, sharp fragments remain suspended.

They represent grief itself — beautiful in memory, painful in reality.

Even the artist’s “failed” pieces remain in the exhibition. For Al Omaira, imperfection is essential. Healing, she believes, is never clean or complete.

A Bed That Cannot Rest

At the centre of the exhibition stands a bed made of steel and broken glass. It challenges the idea of comfort, showing how grief makes even rest feel uneasy.

Sleep becomes a question, not a refuge.

Frozen Tears and Vanishing Words

Her Cold Tear series captures resin droplets placed on mirrors, each representing a moment from a year of mourning. Lullabies are stitched backwards. Words are written, then erased.

Nothing stays. Everything changes.

A Space to Feel

Rather than offering closure, Al Omaira invites visitors to sit inside contradiction:
softness that wounds, beauty that breaks, love that lingers.

Her work does not resolve grief — it holds it.