Shatha Altowai
Shatha Altowai (born 1989, Aden, Yemen) is a Yemeni visual artist based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her work spans figurative, cubist, abstract, and digital forms, exploring identity, displacement, resilience, and the impact of conflict on women and children. She has exhibited internationally and received several awards, including the IIE Artist Protection Fund Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh (2020–2021), the John Byrne Award (2021), and the Scottish Women’s Award (2022). Shatha is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Creative Industries at the University of Edinburgh.
“Folding the Universe” reflects my belief that peace is not always visible on the surface. Peace, to me, is like a universe folded inside the human body — carrying both conflict and grief, but also fragile sparks of hope. My work imagines the moment peace arrives: the body dissolves, unburdened by labels, transparent and free, moving like water.
When I began working on “Folding the Universe”, I turned to the guiding questions of the createPeace initiative. They struck me in ways I did not expect. I realised I had grown accustomed to conflicts, anxiety, fear, and chaos as though they were normal — part of who I am, shaping me into a resilient survivor who wakes each day amidst the noise and tries to savour what remains.
At first, the questions unsettled me. They seemed obvious, yet they shook me profoundly: What if I woke tomorrow and there was nothing to fear, only peace? I discovered that I was not ready for such a thought. The abnormality of the world’s chaos had become a strange addiction, something that forged my resilience but also my resistance to imagining peace.
This process of questioning — of confronting both fear and possibility — became the foundation of the artwork. Through layering, dissolving forms, and hidden universes, I sought to create an image that poses the same unsettling question to the viewer: What would peace look like, and are we truly ready for it?
“Folding the Universe”, 2025, digital artwork on aludibond, created in Procreate with final colour adjustments in Lightroom (30x45cm)