Nine artists collaborate to help underprivileged children
Dubai: Spending just 90 minutes of your time with children from the poorest areas in the region and those with special needs can make a huge difference.
That is what nine up-and-coming and established international artists are doing in collaboration with Canvas Magazine and Start, a non-profit organisation that uses art to heal, teach, and enrich the skills and opportunities of underprivileged children in the Middle East.
Syrian artists Safwan Dahoul, Khalid Takreti, Sacha Jafri, media artist James Clar, Zara Mahmoud, Iraqi artist Athier Moussawi, and Scottish artist Sandie Rushforth contributed their time and art expertise for Start's free teaching programmes for children with special needs, orphans, and refugees in the Middle East.
Joining the team of volunteer artists are Emirati artist Maisoon Al Saleh and world-renowned British artist Patricia Millns.
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Their artwork, be it painting, sculpture, drawing, and installation, have been opened to the public at the Art at the Park in an exhibition called "Exporing the Narrative."
"This [exhibition] aims to encourage other artists as well to get involved with our programme, volunteer their time whether in the UAE or outside the UAE, to teach children about their practice and knowledge they've gained through art," Nicola Lee, regional manager of Start, told Gulf News.
Self-expression
"It's a free-of-charge activity for the children to learn and gain self confidence and knowledge about art. We're not necessarily teaching them to become artists but to use art as form of therapy, as a form of self-expression and creativity," she added.
Each of the artist is assigned a specific country or emirate. Workshops are run in refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. Another set of workshops are held regularly in an orphanage in Palestine while various workshops are held in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah focusing on children with special needs. Start, which has been holding this programme for the last five years, also gives out scholarships to select children.
"It's a great way for kids to be kids again and to take their mind off from the struggles of their daily lives and be introduced to colour and art," Lee said.
"Patricia Millns is going to work with our scholarship winner who is being mentored by Start for a year and is getting creative internship and mentored by artists. Maisoon is also going to volunteer next year." Lee continued.
Millns, who has royalty among her patrons, said spending time with people is an art inspiration in itself. "I'm normally inspired by people, A lot of my work involves talking to people, discussions, and I can people watch all day. And most of my inspirations are not from other art — they're from life itself," Millns said.
One of the youngest in the group, Maisoon said her works are reminders to the Emirati youth about real-life conflicts.
Talking about one of her artwork which features a skeleton celebrating the National Day, she said: "Usually, here in the Gulf region while they [the youth] are celebrating, they would over celebrate by speeding, doing those stunts and moves and all that and end up with a car accident."
Maisoon's works speak to its audience about the realities of life. But the artist herself takes her time to connect directly with her audience. And joining Start's programme is one of them.
"I really encourage them to go forward with this [passion for art]. I'm an emerging artist myself but I would go to universities and schools and give lectures to boost up their spirits," she added.
What: Exploring the Narrative — A collection of sculptures, paintings, installations
Where: Park Hyatt Dubai
When: November 2-8
This week: 24.9.10 to 30.9.10
Last Updated: September 08. 2010 4:37PM UAE / September 8. 2010 12:37PM GMT
Maisoon Al Saleh’s work is based around skeletons and bones Courtesy Maraya Arts Centre
The Main Event
The Bright Side of the Bones Maisoon Al Saleh’s first solo
exhibition is about everyday stories of Emirati life. Each picture
tells a new part of the narrative and charts what it’s like to live in
the present day, as well as the recent past. Al Saleh also reclaims the
skull as a positive image and her works bring people back to life with
the precision of a scientist. Class structure, genetics, religion, diet
and conflict are all addressed in this ambitious collection. Al Saleh
uses real detail than the bones in her work to tell us more about the
person who was once connected to the skeleton. Striking, subtle,
punctuated by very strong characters, this exhibition, which was curated
by Giuseppe Moscatello and Eiman Al Amri, achieves a perfect balance. Tuesday
until October 28, 10am-10pm (Fridays 2-10pm), third floor, Maraya Arts
Centre, Sharjah, www.barjeelartfoundation.com, 06 556 6555
Last Updated: May 25. 2010 12:27AM UAE / May 24. 2010 8:27PM GMT
Maisoon al Saleh, 22, at home with her works. “We all end up looking like this,” she said. Jeffrey E Biteng / The National
DUBAI // In one image, an elderly woman dressed in a jalabiya sits ready to serve tea. In another, a young woman, with heavy eyeliner and her hair piled up under her scarf, chats on a BlackBerry. A third shows a young boy with a UAE scarf making a “peace” gesture.
As depictions of Emiratis, the paintings are unremarkable but for one detail: they are all skeletons.
“I wanted to focus on the inside and remind everyone of just how similar we all are in the end,” said the creator of these images, Maisoon al Saleh.
Each acrylic painting was inspired by people in her life, she said: the young woman is a college friend, and the young boy a friend who crashed his car on national day. “I leave it to the viewer to make their own conclusions about the stories behind these faceless Emirati people.”
At 22, al Saleh is already planning her first solo exhibition this summer, in the Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah. She is currently in talks to put on a show in Italy.
She is also taking part in this week’s custom toys exhibition at the Dubai International Financial Centre as one of the 100 artists who have each put their individual touches to a 20cm-high white figurine.
Hers, naturally, is a skeleton. It will wear traditional head wear, the ghutra, as well as headphones and will dance the traditional yola dance with a stick.
Al Saleh said her fascination with bones began when she was 16 and went to hospital for an X-ray of her back. “I looked at that skeleton and said to myself, there lies the skeleton of an Emirati girl,” she said.
She went home and began to paint skeletons of humans and animals. Since then, her works have included a skeletal camel walking in the desert, and the bones of a middle-aged Emirati man glued to the television.
When people first see her paintings, she said, “they are taken aback, but soon they realise the humour and the universality of what they see, and laugh at it. People are both frightened and fascinated by death.”
Nicknamed Reddish, for the red hoodies she wears while painting, al Saleh will graduate next month from Zayed University in Dubai with a degree in interior design. She studied the art of Picasso in her teenage years, and later the works of the Emirati artist Abdul Qader al Rais.
Her latest piece, completed last month, is of a sorrowful mother, covered in black abaya and scarf, clutching her infant. It was inspired by stories of mothers in war zones.
“I carefully studied the anatomy of bones and skeletons to capture the age of the skeletons, but something inside of me helped me bring out the emotions of the characters in my paintings,” she said.
With slight alternations around the eye sockets and jaw bones, al Saleh was able to show the hunger of a young Emirati woman on a diet, eating a single piece of chicken.
“There is a growing eating disorder among young women,” she said. “They try to look like the celebrities they read about and start harsh diets that cause them to faint and get ill.”
She recalled a friend who passed out in front of her father after weeks of starving herself into a smaller clothing size.
“I can comment on all aspects of our lives through these paintings without identifying or singling a particular person out,” she said.
She recently sold one of her works – a diptych called The Couple – to the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah. One of her first sales, it depicts a male and a female skeleton dressed in traditional wedding attire – the groom in a khandoura and ceremonial cloak, the bishet, and his bride in an embroidered white dress. They were based on a real couple, who were together until death separated them.
“There is no escaping death. We are all equal in its eyes, where it doesn’t judge the exterior and couldn’t care less about our race, class, or age,” she said.
“When death comes, we all end up looking like this.”
Last Updated: October 27. 2009 1:05PM UAE / October 27. 2009 9:05AM GMT
With the city currently in a grip of motoring fever, it seems only
fitting that the first intrepid visitors to Saadiyat Island were
greeted with an exhibition of classic cars. More precisely, considering
the island’s cultural plans, these were Art Cars – a fleet of vehicles
dating from the 1920s to today, customised by a group of local and
international artists in pop-art designs, and displayed at the island’s
newest venue, Manarat al Saadiyat.
Programmed to coincide with the start of the inaugural Abu Dhabi
Grand Prix this weekend, Art Cars provides visitors with their first
opportunity to access the island from the new 10-lane highway which
officially opened, along with the Sheikh Khalifa Bridge, 12 days ago,
and passes through Saadiyat Island en route to Yas and Shahama.
For
Art Cars, the Manarat’s surrounding paths have been dotted with a fan
of gleaming classic styles from Europe and America, including a 1931
Chevrolet Independence and a 2009 Aston Martin DBS. Organised by the Abu
Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA), the exhibition features 13 customised
cars which have been sourced from all over the UAE, as well as 15 on
loan from the collection of Sheikh Tahnoon bin Mohammed, Abu Dhabi’s
Ruler’s Representative in the Eastern Region, which have been left
unadorned.
Though the interior of the Manarat (meaning “lighthouse”) is not due
to open until November 18, when it will host an exhibition of work by
Middle Eastern artists during Abu Dhabi Art (November 19-22), its
intricate latticework exterior is already visible, stretched over a
15,400 sq m industrial warehouse-like frame. Featuring four exhibition
spaces and a theatre, it will host The Saadiyat Story, an interactive
narrative explaining the cultural vision behind Saadiyat; Arts Abu Dhabi
Gallery, a permanent space for exhibitions and programmes organised by
the Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC); and two spaces
dedicated to the future Guggenheim and Louvre Abu Dhabi museums.
In the meantime, though, the action is outside, where tables have
been strewn with books on pop art, as well as on the artists Andy Warhol
and Keith Haring. A coffee shop is due to open any day. “The idea is
that you will be able to come and sip a coffee here,” says Ahmed
Hussein, the ADTA’s deputy director general of tourism operations. “The
creators of pop art can be brought to life. So there is also an
educational element.”
Among the Emirati artists participating are
Abdul Qader al Rais, Jalal Luqman, Maisoon al Saleh, Wasel Safwan,
Noora al Suwaidi, Faiza Mubarak, Khouk Mubarak and Mohammed al Mubarak.
The cars, according to Hussein, were -allocated according to style. “It
was just about feeling,” he says. “The shape of the car would inspire
us. For instance, this Rolls-Royce has more space, so we decided to give
it to al Rais because he has never done small pieces.” The 1970s model
has been given a soft spray of colour, graduating from red through to a
darker purple. “It has my sense of style,” says al Rais, “I wanted to do
something that wasn’t flamboyant.”
Others have not been so
reticent. The 1959 Chevrolet Impala, adorned by Wasel Safwan with a
technicolour arrangement of garish shapes, has significantly more
pizzazz. “I call it UAE-ism,” he says. What does it say about him?
“Maybe it means I need to go and see a psychiatrist,” he laughs, before
adding, “I studied architecture, which may explain the geometric
patterns.” The choice of car, he says, was perfect for him. “If I could
have chosen any car, I would have chosen this one. Its sharp wings
remind me of me.”
Likewise, Faiza Mubarak’s makeover for the 1931
Chevrolet Independence in a mosaic of bright squares is in stark
contrast to its original form. “The themes are traditional, old style,”
she says of the hieroglyphic patterns that line its flanks. “It’s like a
mosaic of language.” The task took her four days to complete. She has
even signed the roof. “I saw it and knew immediately what I wanted to
do.” Following a recent solo exhibition in Paris, Art Cars provided her
with the perfect next career step. “I didn’t know how to follow up from
Paris and then this came along.”
Like the pop art of the 1950s
and 1960s, the artists’ message is not always as celebratory as its
sunny colours would have us believe. Maisoon al Saleh’s 1968 Mercedes
250 SL is decorated with a repeated skull pattern, their heads wrapped
in ghutras. “It’s about the three stages of life,” she says. “You are
born, then you’re a teenager, then you get older. There are lots of
Emirati teenagers dying in car crashes. I have some close friends who
were killed in an accident and others who were injured.” The way the
ghutra is wrapped around the head is, she says, representative of how
young Emirati teenagers wear them. “I thought it was important to make a
point.”
The work of several international figures is also on
show, including that of Vincent Leow, a Singaporean artist who teaches
at the College of Fine Art at the University of Sharjah; the
contemporary French artist -Fabien Verschaere; and the Singaporean
artist Ben Puah. Noticeably simpler, their works range from Verschaere’s
black graffiti on a pearly white 2009 Aston Martin DBS (“I like to work
in black and white because it’s closer to writing”) to Leow’s delicate
floral pattern lacing round the black bodywork of a 1939 Cadillac
LaSalle. “I think the car is really beautiful,” says Leow, “so I didn’t
want to change it completely. It was like giving it a dress. I was quite
nervous about wrecking so many years of history, so I just wanted to
put layers on it to improve it.”
Leow wasn’t the only one who had
doubts about altering these well-loved classic styles. “Somebody
actually offered me Dh100,00 not to do it,” says al Rais, “but now I
think it is worth more.”
“At first I thought, ‘I can’t, I’ll
destroy it,” says Khouk Mubarak, whose 1973 Mercedes 450 SL now has an
enormous falcon spread across its bonnet. “The cars are works of art in
themselves, but I’m happy to be able to add new value to old value.”
•
Art Cars is open daily from 10am until 8pm at Manarat al Saadiyat,
Saadiyat Island, until November 30, when a selection of the cars will be
auctioned off for charity. For more information call the Abu Dhabi
T-ourism hotline on 800 555. Entrance is free.
