The mud house stands for our culture and our ancestors’ traditions,” explained eleven-year-old Rabia Al-Mutairi the youngest artist participating in the House of Artists’ latest exhibition “Vibrant Beginnings.”
Fifty of the sixty painters were women of different ages. Students, employees and housewives shared their paintings and exchanged their experiences with one another. Abdullah Hamas the well-known painter and president of the House of Artists greatly praised the paintings. “They are promising young talents who will blossom in the Fine arts scene in the Kingdom,” Hamas said.
Though the majority of the artists are not art graduates, they experimented boldly with different kinds of techniques: realism, surrealism, cubism and abstract.
“Long before I was introduced to art styles I tended to paint using the techniques of surrealism. When I studied these techniques I was very fond of Salvador Dali’s work and I started to study how he used color in his drawings,” said Taghrid Al-Jada’ani.
Salma Al-Mowalad, another exhibitor, sets another example of what can talent and strong will achieve. “I never had the chance to study art academically. I live in a town around 30 kilometers east of Jeddah so it’s hard for me to enroll in any of the art institutes in the city.” Salma’s portraits skillfully depict human feelings of anger and sadness. “I like to observe people closely to transform their facial expressions, specially the movements of muscles,” she added.
“Can you see a woman’s breast? It’s there take a good look, it centers the ruined buildings in the painting!” Suhaila Yousif asked me. I took a long look at the painting as Suhaila explained the hidden image in her abstract painting enthusiastically. “Women are the foundation of the home; without her support the whole world collapses.”
Another eye-catching drawing was a striking study of a woman’s head by Amal Faloudah. The painting, in shades of brown and ochre, showed a woman with a dreamy expression and long hair surrounded by clustering butterflies. “I had the idea of the painting when I was in Malaysia in a park surrounded by butterflies,” explained Amal. “I get ideas from everything around me, then I mold them in my own style of painting.”
It is not only oil paintings that are on display. Nuha Abdulgader, a university student, works with ceramics. “I’m experimenting with a variety of techniques until I find my own style, for now I’m expermenting with paint and ceramic” Nuha said. She also went bolder and made a statue of ceramic inspired by the Egyptian obelisk. “I tried to add some Islamic touches to the obelisk by using Islamic plant motifs,” she added.
As the exhibition ended last week, there was a distinct impression among the exhibitors that the dreams and aspirations of the young women will neither end nor surrender to any kind of obstacle.
The paintings spoke for themselves: “WE ARE HERE TO STAY.”