Artists in Residence: Summer 2025
Ziad Al Najjar and Pippa El-Kadhi Brown at La Serena, Forte dei Marmi
Ziad Al Najjar
7 – 27 June 2025
Ziad Al Najjar is an Emirati artist whose practice explores materiality, perception, and the emotional resonance of colour. Working primarily on unstretched canvas, his tactile abstractions are informed by constructivism, op-art, and nature’s organic geometries.
At La Serena, Al Najjar will deepen his investigation into the relationship between structure and fluidity, drawing from the Tuscan landscape to expand his ongoing enquiry into spiritual presence, earthbound memory, and the illusionary.
Pippa El-Kadhi Brown
15 July – 19 August 2025
Later in the summer, British artist Pippa El-Kadhi Brown will take residence at La Serena. Her evocative paintings explore the traces left behind by the body — what she refers to as “human-made Frankensteins” — spaces layered with memory, intimacy, and the uncanny. Her work subtly shifts between physical interiors and psychological spaces, inviting viewers to reconsider how we inhabit and are shaped by the environments around us.
During her residency, El-Kadhi Brown will draw inspiration not only from La Serena’s textures and understated elegance but also from the surrounding region’s layered history and artistic heritage. Excursions to Florence, Siena, and Pietrasanta will offer further depth to her exploration of domestic rituals and spaces in transition. Guests will witness her process as she translates these inspirations into poetic, painterly worlds where memory and material intertwine.
