Although she has held several exhibitions, the exhibition with the title Taratil Al-Hanan (Hymns of Compassion) in 2009 brought her to international attention.
“My motto is ‘I’m here as long as my heart throbs with art.’ For me painting is everything. It is the true life but molded by my own imagination and manifested in colors,” Hanan told Arab News in a recent interview.
On a question about the influence of childhood in drawing her to the world of painting, she said: “I recognized the painter in me accidentally while visiting a painting exhibition at a very early age. A strange feeling started to haunt me after that impelling me to enter the world of colors. I bought a set of colors and started painting without the slightest idea about the rudiments of painting. I was overwhelmed with a feeling to learn and master it. Even the smell of colors drifted me to a world of dream and delight, which had no comparison with the world of reality.”
Speaking about the encouragement she received to become a painter, she said: “My desire to master the art pushed me forward and gave me the courage to undertake the arduous task of studying art. My father and mother, of course, supported me. My father had a rare aesthetic sense especially when it comes to color combinations. He was also a musician who excelled in playing of oud. Mother gave me all moral support. She even prayed for my success.”
Regarding her struggle to master the art, Hanan said: “I developed and expanded my faculty of imagination with the help of my sensations, thoughts and experiences. I project my imagination to the canvas until I get a feeling that I have translated all my imaginations to the piece I am working on. But I do not confine to my own experiences. I expand the horizon of my imagination with the experiences of other people particularly of women victims of family abuse, rape and the insecurity of orphans.”
She continued: “I depict my own and others’ real experiences on canvas. Apart from women’s bitter experiences such as family abuse, deception, divorce, rape, orphanhood, my paintings cover sufferings of Palestinian people. I have never doubted that my viewers will not admire my focusing on women’s suffering which is universal.”
She said she have been striving to achieve her self-realization through the medium of paintings.
Her public appearance as a painter was rather late, to be precise, nine years ago. Her participation in joint exhibitions with other painters helped sharpen her talent. “It was in 2005 that I first showcased a solo exhibition on diverse themes. After I turned to abstract paintings, the Taratil Al-Hanan in 2009, received great appreciation,” she said.
Speaking more about the Taratil Al-Hanan, she said: “It was the first solo exhibition showcasing 100 paintings by a Saudi woman. All paintings are based on real events but with a stamp of my own imagination. Now I have a feeling that I can produce more beautiful works than the Taratil. In fact, as years pass by and my horizon of experience expands I become restless with a feeling that I can do better.”
She considered that the Taratil was her best work because of their colors and themes focusing on women’s suffering.
She said Picasso was her role model. She believed that a number of factors including studies, experience, attending exhibitions and reading books enriched her experience.
When asked why she made a rather late entry to the world of art, she said in her early youth she was busy with her family life. However, she used to paint at home without the slightest inkling that she would ever have to share her inner feelings and display her works in public.
Regarding the popularity of her works, she said, “My exhibitions were, thank God, successful. Anyone who identifies a worthy painting will acquire it instantly. My paintings have been sold even in London. The prices of my paintings are not unaffordable.”
Talking about her choosing fashion designing as her profession despite her mastery of the art of painting, she said she considered clothes as another medium on which she could express herself in myriad of colors.
“Painting is a world of my own while fashion designing is a profession in which I find a meeting point between the latest Western style and Saudi women’s taste for colors, ” she said. Regarding her preferred colors she said: “I love red, fuchsia, forest and black green and my designs are perfected with a harmony in colors or a contradiction of colors. I also experiment in giving oriental features to Western forms by blending Arab tastes with global fashion trends. Some comments on my fashion designs that they are Western have prompted me to make more and more innovations in blending Saudi and Arab taste to the global taste. But it demands hard work to be keep the originality of any work.” In the course of her artistic career she has met with personalities who influenced her such as Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah during the opening of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology a and Makkah Governor Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, who loves painting while she attended the Taif festival.
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