Diana Al-Hadid (b. 1981, Aleppo, Syria; lives and works in Brooklyn, New York) is known for her practice of examining the historical frameworks and perspectives that continue to shape discourse on culture and materials today. With a practice spanning sculpture, wall reliefs, and works on paper, Al-Hadid weaves together enigmatic narratives that draw inspiration from both ancient and modern civilizations. The artist’s rich allegorical constructions are born from art historical religious imagery, ancient manuscripts, female archetypes, and folkloric storytelling frameworks. Framed by a host of references from antiquity, cosmology, cartography, and architecture, Al-Hadid’s work gives form to ghostly images abstractly rendered in materials as various as steel, polymer gypsum, fiberglass, wood, foam, plaster, aluminum foil, and pigment. Al-Hadid’s process-based explorations innovate from commonplace industrial materials. Their formidable presence sits steady in the lineage of creation and construction that we associate with empire, complicated by an often elegiac tone.