ALKHOBAR, 23 February 2007 — Hearing about an art exhibition called “Blue Stories” one might imagine dark paintings, layered with gloom and foreboding — but that isn’t Hussein Al-Mohasen’s reality. The paintings do have stories to tell though; tales that tend to differ with the viewer, and that individual’s perspective on life.
Al-Mohasen isn’t new to the Saudi art scene. Resident in Al-Qatif, he first garnered notice at a group exhibition in 1999 and went on to have his first solo exhibition in 2001. His latest show, Blue Stories, which opened to the public yesterday at Desert Designs in Alkhobar, will continue until March 3. Select paintings from the show are already slated to exhibit in Dubai in April and over the past few weeks Blue Stories was previewed by delegations passing through the home of Terry Evans, head of the British Trade Office in Alkhobar.
At the private viewing of the exhibition on Wednesday evening, hosted by the proprietors of Desert Designs, Farid Bukhari and his wife Qamar Ahmed, Al-Mohasen was surrounded by fans eager to hear about his latest inspirations. Known to paint to music, jazz seems to have had a significant influence on his new paintings.
“Hussein’s canvases are not silent. They have a voice and that voice is the color,” Qamar Ahmed said while standing before the centerpiece of the show, the painting titled “Piano.” “He uses amazing combinations of color, such as magenta with blue and he manages to carry it off. Even nicer is that when I look at Hussein’s work I don’t see a commercial aspect to it. He doesn’t create an exhibition with the thought, ‘Oh, silver is the decorator color this year. Let me include some silver in every painting so ladies will want to hang them in their living rooms. He doesn’t do Arabian themes or landscapes to please certain patrons either.’ In the Saudi art world these days, an artist who paints to please himself is unusual.”
Al-Mohasen is acknowledged to be moody and he rarely does the expected, even when it comes to technique. In Blue Stories, some of the paintings have been done on watercolor paper using acrylic paints, but Al-Mohasen has still retained the same watercolor feel and flow. He has no compulsion even to complete a painting as he started it, believing that it can be more effective to add finishing touches in gilt, ink or some other media instead of acrylic.
“There is no limit in art and there are no rules,” emphasized Al-Mohasen. “Nobody can tell me what’s the right or wrong way for me to create my work. It’s good to study art history but I don’t believe that it’s right to let the past work of others hold me back from creating what is in my imagination What each artist is trying to do is create his own new language, his own expression and hopefully be able to communicate. That’s not easy.”
Although his paintings are priced between SR1,200 and SR25,000, Al-Mohasen bristled at the suggestion that he creates with commercial intent. “I don’t care if people like my art or not,” he said aggressively. “If I just wanted money, I’ve been an artist long enough and I know how to sell. If I thought about whether my work would sell or not it would be very unsatisfying for me. What sort of life would I have?”
What Al-Mohasen does have is enough of a following that art is now his full-time preoccupation. This is unusual in the Kingdom where most artists are forced to work in some other profession to earn enough to put bread on the table. It also shows that there is more of an emphasis on the importance of culture in Saudi society. But not everyone is pleased with this artist’s success.
“Sometimes I tell a man that I’m an artist and it’s not enough for him. I can see it in his eyes,” Al-Mohasen said. “He thinks that art is so easy. It’s something I should do in my free time, some sort of hobby and I’m really unemployed. These people just don’t understand. As an artist my entire life experience goes into my work. What I feel inside goes on that canvas so I can’t tell myself to stop feeling. Sometimes that makes me sick. I become so stressed. I just want to shut down the emotions that are churning inside me, but then I would be turning off my creativity and that would hurt too much.”
So yes, he’s sensitive and moody. And he gets up in the middle of the night sometimes to paint. But please don’t think he’s weird. It’s only his vocation that’s unusual.
“Some galleries want the artists they promote to look crazy. I’ve had gallery owners tell me to look ‘artistic,’ that means dress and act weird. They also discourage me from communicating in any sort of understandable manner. Those gallery owners think that this makes the art seem more creative — or so I am told. To keep my self-respect, I’ve become a lot more careful about where I exhibit,” said Al-Mohasen.
Despite the difficulties in mounting exhibitions, Al-Mohasen thinks that now there is more respect for artists in the Arab world. These days the media follows certain artists which he finds encouraging, but he believes that it’s still hard to find competent art critics. Almost all art critics in the Arab world let their personal like or dislike of the artist cloud their judgment on the artist’s technique. Al-Mohasen also detests it when he reads an article about art in which the language is complex but the words mean nothing.
“In the Arab media, art is presented in a way to make it seem mysterious, but that just confuses people,” he observed. “We shouldn’t be intimidated by art. I think of art as something simple and honest and that’s how I want my art viewed, in a simple, honest way.”
