In this episode of The Truth In This Art, the guest is Dina AZ. Salem!
About Dina AZ. Salem: Washington, DC–based abstract contemporary artist born in Alexandria, Egypt, working across painting and sculpture to create materially driven works that explore healing, transformation, memory, and resilience. Through layered surfaces, texture, and unconventional materials, her practice investigates how personal experience can be translated into visual language. She signs her work with the initials of her late father, honoring the person who first encouraged her artistic journey.
In our conversation, Salem talks through growing up in Alexandria, Egypt, and how her mother discovered that painting calmed her down as a kid — leading to a lifelong artistic practice that began at four or five years old. She shares how she once applied to a shoe design school in Italy, and how her path eventually led her to Virginia Tech and, about four years ago, to Washington, DC — a journey she describes as something that “chose her” rather than the other way around.
She gets into her philosophy that materials carry memory — sourcing everything from plaster to broken rock to items she comes across walking around DC and shopping at Home Depot, which she calls her happy place. Salem talks about creating her first major piece while healing from a difficult period in her life, and how she began seeing certain textures, like plaster, as visual stand-ins for scars — marks that represent surviving something rather than being defined by it. She also describes her love of physically breaking materials down and rebuilding them, finding the process both grounding and exciting. Central to her practice is a question she keeps returning to: how do we become someone new without losing who we were — using an example like sand, which can be reshaped into something entirely different while still, fundamentally, remaining sand.
Be sure to follow Dina AZ. Salem on Instagram at @dinaazsalem to keep up with her work and future projects.
Photo courtesy of Abdallah Sabry.
The Truth In This Art is supported by William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund, the Maryland State Arts Council’s Creativity Grant and Mayor’s Individual Artist Award – Creative Baltimore Fund (Baltimore).
Host: Rob Lee
Music: Original music by Daniel Alexis Music with additional music from Chipzard and TeTresSeis.
Production:
- Produced by Rob Lee & Daniel Alexis
- Edited by Daniel Alexis
- Show Notes courtesy of Rob Lee and Transistor
Photos:
- Rob Lee photos by Vicente Martin for The Truth In This Art and Contrarian Aquarian Media.
- Guest photos courtesy of the guest, unless otherwise noted.
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