Shurooq Amin by Ayyam Gallery

SHUROOQ AMIN

Contents Introduction Artistic Inklings and a Happy Home The Teen Years Marriage and Art Perseverance Global Recognition Maelstrom Continued Success A Rebel in the Crowd, Artist in the State: Situating Shurooq Amin in Arab Discourse on Gender and Sexuality Shurooq Amin: Through the Looking-Glass House Artist Biography Paintings (2007-2014) Synthesis (2007-2009) Society Girls (2009-2011) The Bullet (2009-2011) It’s a Man’s World (2011-2012) Popcornographic (2012-2013) We’ll Build this City on Art and Love (2013-2014) About the writers About Ayyam gallery

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Born in Kuwait, Shurooq Amin is a leading interdisciplinary art practitioner of Kuwaiti-Syrian background. Exhibiting since the mid 1990s, she is widely known in the Arabian Gulf for delving into themes that are often considered too controversial for artists. Through her mixed media postmodern works Amin touches upon the state of modern Arab society as it becomes increasingly globalised. At the centre of her art is an ongoing investigation of the domestic lives of anonymous Kuwaitis as they navigate the cultural contradictions that form the schisms of a conservative society. With contributions by writers Maymanah Farhat and Zarmina Rafi, this monograph explores the intricacies of Amin’s decades-long career through comparative discussions of her works within the broader milieus of international art and literature. Also included is an autobiographical account of the artist’s life, which offers an intimate view of her creative development. Featuring over eighty colour reproductions, ranging from her early experiments with a combined approach to portraiture to her recent cutting-edge compositions, Shurooq Amin traces the evolution of the artist’s celebrated oeuvre.

Artistic Inklings and a Happy Home

The Teen Years

As far back as I can remember the pencil was within reach of my hand. I was, like most children always doodling but I was also unlike most children, creating ‘home-made books’ from A4 paper that were tied together with satin hair ribbons looped through punched holes on the left margin. Each ‘book’ was an illustrated story, sometimes in comic book style, sometimes in fairy-tale style, but always included my own stories (either figments of the imagination or incidents from the world around me) and my own sketches. At the time I had no idea that I lived a privileged childhood. I thought it was perfectly normal for a child from 1970’s Kuwait to travel to Moscow (Cold War era), attend the Bolshoi Ballet and meet its dancers backstage; I thought it was perfectly normal for an eight year old to own entire limited edition collections of Nancy Drew novels and various LP records signed by respective composers/singers. I thought it was perfectly normal to travel all over Europe, visit museums and attend concerts; I thought it was perfectly normal to attend a private English school (at the time there was only one private British school in Kuwait, Tareq Rajab’s New English School). I thought it was perfectly normal to be taking ballet lessons, to be an Anglophone (when none in my family were) and to be a little painter. At the age of nine, when my father gathered all my drawings and organised for me to participate in a group exhibition at the National Council of Culture, Arts and Letters at Ahmed Al-Adwani Art Hall I thought it was perfectly normal too.

This ideal existence ended in 1979 when my father died at age forty. It was the first day of Eid and he died in my arms. I was eleven. My world shattered, not only because of the close bond I had with him and not only because of the logistics involved of how my mother, who was Syrian, very young and pregnant would deal with me and my brother, but also because we went from being privileged children to ‘orphans.’ There were legal, familial and social matters that had to be dealt with, and ultimately we (the children) were made scapegoat for every legal and family issue that took place. During my teen years I became disturbed, confused and extremely rebellious. I went from being daddy’s girl to an orphan. I was sad, angry and pitiful so much so that I sent myself a postcard on my birthday, signing it, ‘From your Baba.’ I was constantly angry but it was the first time I realised I could express my anger, frustration and sense of injustice through art. Inevitably I lost myself in my art. I used every type of medium I could find, from traditional art shop materials (charcoal, pencil, pastel, watercolour, gouache, oil, acrylic etc.) to unorthodox materials including toothbrushes, string, kitchen utensils and medical equipment. The most memorable event of my teen years was when I turned thirteen and my mother bought me my first easel, a set of oil paints and proper canvas. The rest of my teen years were spent rebelling by cutting my hair punk, dying it various unusual hues, getting piercings and donning punkish outfits. Going against my family and society who had expected me to behave in a certain way caused me to behave in my own way and often getting into trouble by writing stories, poems and non-fictional accounts of things better left unsaid. I painted tragic images of absurdity and human frailty, on occasion even sketches of bouts of pubertyinflicted sexual tumult. Between the ages of fifteen and eighteen it became clear to my school that I was ‘gifted,’ I won art prizes both on the school and the national state level. I began to see art differently. It occurred to me that art as self-expression or catharsis was not enough. I didn't only want to put my feelings and thoughts onto paper or canvas; I wanted the whole world to see them and to understand my language. I wanted to speak up. I wanted to have a voice. I realised then that in order to be taken seriously I had to hone my craft. I had to become excellent as a draftsperson, not just as a conceptual thinker. Apart from art classes at school I started copying the masters at home: Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Rubens, Sargent, Manet, Klimt, Vermeer, and Degas were my favourites. I copied their paintings, using oil paints, I bought hundreds of books on art techniques and began to teach myself the various techniques used in oil painting. I stuck with oils for a few years because I was becoming somewhat of a purist. The more I lived with the masters, the more of a purist I became, artistically (of course that changed radically in later years). I decided, when the time came, to study art in college and so I applied to several good Fine Art universities in England. However, two things stood in my way, the first was my mother not wanting me to study abroad at such a young age and the second was that the Kuwaiti Ministry of Education did not dispense scholarships for art. This was the most difficult time of my teen years: I was not allowed to pursue my dream of studying art. After a botched attempt at suicide, I accepted a scholarship from the Kuwaiti Ministry of Education to study English Literature at Kent University. During this period of my life I abandoned art altogether, almost in an effort to annihilate myself, so as not to acknowledge my existence and to punish myself.

Photo by Maha Alasaker

Marriage and Art

Perseverance

I got married in 1992, immediately becoming pregnant. That first year I painted and wrote profusely, guided by overwrought hormones. I wrote on my husband’s desk when he wasn’t at home (because I didn’t have a desk) and painted in the kitchen (because I didn't have a studio). My experimentation paid off as a gallery owner heard about me and decided to pay me a visit to see my work. The gallerist was overwhelmed by the amount of work I had produced while pregnant and barefoot in a small kitchen (still holding a full time teaching job at Kuwait University). She immediately signed me up to exhibit the work in my first solo show right after I gave birth in 1993. The same year I also published my first book of poetry, Kuwaiti Butterfly: Unveiled and sold it at the show. The debut show sold out, with some paintings selling before the actual opening. The book sold well, too. After rave reviews on both counts I was happy. So happy that I knew the kind of happiness achieving my dreams brought me could not be compared to anything else. It was where I found myself. For the next seventeen years I suffered in my marriage, a pain that I kept hidden from my family and friends but pored into my art and poetry, resulting in numerous solo shows at various private and national galleries, many group shows, biennales, art fairs, and competitions. I was acknowledged and chosen as a judge for various competitions in Kuwait and Dubai. I submitted my poetry and writings to international journals, and got my second book of poetry accepted for publication in the United States. I was the artist of choice for the biggest commissions in the country, including being given the responsibility of painting the Presidential villas at Bayan Palace for the Amir of Kuwait, as well as a project for the headquarters of OPEC in Vienna. I was taking the long and arduous road to international recognition, but I persevered. I had indomitable faith in myself and it kept paying off.

By 2009 my marriage broke apart, I was working through a divorce and thus my technique evolved completely. I wanted a way to get close to my children and a way to show all Arab children that I understood their pain, that I would support them and help them somehow. I wanted to reach out to the confused kids of my doublestandard society in giving them hope. Organically, without even thinking about it, I started to photograph my children, then their friends when they visited the house, and somehow these images became collages on canvas, intermingled with acrylic painting and mixed media. I mounted the canvases on wooden blocks to give them a threedimensional feel. It felt right, I didn’t know why I was working in this way but it just felt right. I continued to work non-stop, connected spiritually to my society, to people and to the universe. I decided to call up some society women I knew and asked if I could photograph them for art. I explained that the photos would end up on canvas, painted and that the women’s identities would remain hidden. The women accepted and so began the journey into Society Girls, the series that catapulted me into ‘fame,’ so to speak. The series was a way for me to rebel again, it freed my spirit yet I was anchored in an unflinching vision, creating thought-provoking art and pushing the boundaries of my society. The polarity between East and West was the backbone of these images, as was my personal struggle as an artist and woman in Kuwait. This journey, researching the secret world of women in Kuwait, entering their homes, allowing them into mine, being privy to the delicate nature of the double lives most lead and later documenting my findings with photographs became self-contained staged photo-shoots of images, and ultimately became paintings, coinciding with my divorce. I was now a single mother of four who had to start all over again, on my own I had to get a loan as well as buy a home big enough for my large family and an artist’s studio. As financially and emotionally harrowing this period of my life was, at the same time it was liberating knowing that I was onto something with my art. I had struck oil. My instinct knew it. The interdisciplinary technique I developed reflected my culture perfectly, a culture interspersed and immersed in socio-political ritualism.

Photo by Maha Alasaker

Global Recognition So I explored, traveled, experimented and documented images that could only culminate in an open-minded and ironically, an open ended dialogue. I wanted my art to underline the fabric of modern Arabian Gulf society. With the international success of Society Girls and the unexpectedly high price the first painting got at the Inaugural Auction of Contemporary Arab and Iranian Art at JAMM Art Gallery in January 2010, the series was well on its way to becoming a cult classic in contemporary Kuwait. Society Girls evolved into The Bullet Series which was picked up by London’s Lahd Gallery who signed me up for a year, representing me in the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia for that period of time. The Bullet Series paintings were shot through with a small Hornet bullet from an M16 sniper gun, providing an allegory of society’s murder of female sensuality and passion. The shooting itself held a dual function for me: on the one hand it was symbolic of society’s injustice and hypocrisy while on the other hand it was a cathartic experience for me to release my vision with kinetic energy. The concentration required to shoot a bulls-eye allowed me to physiologically and symbolically be a part of the canvas. In 2011 I naturally delved into the world of men, having explored children and women in Arabian Gulf culture, it was an organic progression to move into the taboo and hitherto untouched realm of ‘man.’ In It’s a Man’s World I attempted to peel the underlayers of male sub-culture, a documentation to divulge the truth and to open a window into a secret society. I found myself gravitating relentlessly towards the meaning of taboo or haram in Middle Eastern culture. In exploring eroticism, for example, I found myself inspired by Nizar Qabbani’s controversial book, On Entering the Sea and it was then that I began to etch my own poetry onto the canvases, to further challenge society by combining text with imagery. By using a translated version of Qabbani’s censored work, I identified with him as an Anglophone poet myself, for I can only publish my own work abroad. I sought social reform and It’s a Man’s World did that in a way I never expected. I knew it would be controversial but nothing prepared me for the international scandal that ensued following the shut down of the show, and censorship of my paintings in March 2012. After they closed down my show I was distraught because I didn’t see the possibilities the shutdown brought forth. I was depressed that the eighteen paintings I worked on for a year were exhibited for only three hours after which nobody would see them. I wasn’t permitted to show them anymore. It was a devastating feeling that all that hard work and sweat, all that outpouring of conceptual and physical creation, all of the effort was for nothing. A few days prior to the show I was caught up in a terrible car accident, a five-car pile up. My car was sandwiched from the front and the back. I was injured and donning a neck brace, not allowed to go to my own show. However, the night before my opening I painted the neck brace to match my dress because I wanted it to look fashionable and the next day I went to my own show regardless of doctor’s orders. I was in excruciating pain standing there for many hours. No one had any idea how much pain I was in, but there was no way I was going to miss my opening. The raw truth is that when you’re an artist who loves what you do you feel immense pride and joy at the fact that your work is hanging up there for people to enjoy. Little did I anticipate the media tsunami that would follow.

Maelstrom At the end of the night a man came in, wearing an earpiece and walking around, talking on his microphone and taking pictures of all the paintings with his mobile. Then he disappeared. The gallery curator came up to me and asked me to go check on this man as his actions were a bit strange. He did not look like a collector or an art lover. I was shy to go over and ask him what he wanted because it was an art exhibition and I was embarrassed to confront him without reason. The curator was right, because this man came back with an additional five people from three ministries, including the Ministry of Interior Affairs, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Information. One of these men took me in the back room, interrogating me and treating me as if I was a criminal. He threatened me and implied the possibility of jail after an investigation. I was speechless, shocked, and told him that he must be mistaken because I was a university professor and a mother. My paintings were not ‘blasphemous’ or ‘pornographic,’ as the men had accused. This is artwork I told them, and there is nothing in it that goes against rules in Kuwait or in the world. There was no nudity in my paintings, nothing against religion. But how could these men understand art? They would have none of it. They said it was pornographic and blasphemous, that my work was against religion, and must come down immediately. They started taking down the paintings, subsequently closing the show and the gallery. They stated they would take proper procedures regarding the matter and would return the next day. We spent a couple of hours with them and I was terrified. I told my friends what was going on, which they tweeted about and so the episode took off on social media.

Popcornographic because it is the root of most evil in our culture: kisses are censored in the cinema, hence implying to children that love is haram, but ripped out guts and decapitated heads are left uncensored, implying to our children that violence is acceptable. These types of subtle messages weave the fabric of our future generations. Other than subjective censorship, other taboo topics addressed in Popcornographic are child marriage, religious struggles like Sunni Shi’aa conflict, men versus women in the Middle East, the religious implication and place of the tattoo in Arab culture, freedom of expression and cultural progress.

That night, the owner of the gallery took the paintings back to his place. It was such a smart thing to do because the next morning the police came by with a big van asking to take the paintings to destroy them. The curator told the police that all paintings had been sold after which the police could do no harm. The paintings were actually being sold from the gallery owner’s home. People called up and asked to purchase the paintings. It ended up working well as I got a lot of support in the form of thousands of emails, messages and phone calls from all around the world. In fact, the American Critics Association wrote letters to the Amir of Kuwait, The Art Association of Kuwait and to The National Council of Arts on my behalf explaining that the actions of the Ministry went against codes of human rights and freedom of expression, further imploring the government to support me. It was very heart warming and emotional to get such support from strangers that it gave me the strength to get up and work again. I started printing the emails I received and pasted them onto a block of wood that was to become the first artwork for my next show, Popcornographic. Popcornographic addressed issues I had been affected by as an Arab woman living in the Arabian Gulf, and have had to endure, and not only survive but from which I thrived and flourished by taking the negative energy in my environment and creating positive change out of it. Change is inevitable and must be embraced for people to coexist peacefully and with respect. Men in the Arabian Gulf are obsessed with the appearance and behaviour of women, and hence the stigmas attached to adopting modern fashion and Western aesthetic codes result in catastrophic social and personal consequences. Humour is vital in sharing my vision, because of the gravity of the issues at hand. Therefore, it is easier to leave an impact on the viewer if the point is argued with some tongue in cheek humour. Subjective censorship is an issue I frequently addressed in

Continued Success At this point I was being represented by Ayyam Gallery and had my first show with them in Dubai, Popcornographic. It was titled so because my daughter overheard people call my last show ‘popcornographic’, and being young she pronounced the word incorrectly, thus came about, Popcornographic. The word stayed with me as a sarcastic response to the authorities that unjustly censored me. Ironically, one month after Popcornographic opened and one year after the shut down of It’s a Man’s World, I was awarded ‘Artist of the Year,’ by the Arab Woman Awards. This was a huge victory not just for me, but for my country and all other artists. It proved that if you persevere in your vision, if you stay true to your integrity, if you keep fighting for what you believe in, then despite initial resistance and hostility people will come around and start to see things from your point of view. People may not agree with you, but they will respect and appreciate that you have a voice and that you are not afraid to raise it. Winning the Arab Woman Award meant that I was free from the stigma of being a ‘censored’ artist and could now be seen in a more positive light. It gave me the confidence to continue fighting the good fight, because I knew now that my people believed in me and supported me. There is no better feeling in the world than to know that you are supported unconditionally because you inspire others. My vision is relentless and my oeuvre inevitably controversial. I will continue to explore the darker depths of society’s suppression and the fragility of human nature in a critical analysis of an elite sector of society who choose to live life on their own terms. My works are opening a long overdue dialogue on the patriarchal nature of Middle Eastern society. As such, I ensure to document my creative process, illustrating the implementation of my vision onto canvas. My techniques over the years have clearly evolved in relation to my own evolution, determined by the milestones in my life. I continue to be a rebel. And I have no doubt that I will play a hand in liberating my country from its ‘mind-forged manacles of man’ (William Blake). I have a role to play not only in Kuwait but in the region, and I’m here to stay. My 2014 series We’ll Build this City on Art and Love addresses issues that are local (such as the case of the Bedoon, or the stateless of Kuwait) and regional (such as taboo love and relationships, religion versus ritualism, censorship, haram versus halal), as well as global (such as politics, corruption, bribery, mental health and child marriages). At the time of printing this book, I am preparing for my 2015 series Apocalypso Now.

Shurooq Amin Kuwait, August 2014

Photo by Maha Alasaker

A Rebel in the Crowd, Artist in the State: Situating Shurooq Amin in Arab Discourse on Gender and Sexuality

is not masked, rather the veil is upon her mouth, perhaps constricting free speech, indicating the damage that suppression of speech does to women, and in turn making for an ‘ill country’ whose female citizens are victims of anxiety. In the presentation of societal topics of concern in her work, Amin naturally begins to globally align herself with other subjects who face social injustice, and thus brings to the fore the issue of child and forced marriage in war torn countries, in particular in Syria in the present context. Additionally, she has explored issues of environmental degradation and pollution as they become manifest in modern Kuwaiti society, as evidenced in the 2014 work, Pollutoland (2014).

By Zarmina Rafi

For the last twenty years Kuwaiti artist Shurooq Amin has painted subjects that are directly available to her in her world. For example, she has painted friends and acquaintances, her children, and their friends. These painterly male and female subjects offer us an exclusive look into the domestic lives of Khaleeji men and women. A society that so far struggles to maintain shifting definitions of culture as it straddles affluence, tradition, modernity, and codes of religiosity. At the same time, the burden of holding up a national identity or morality becomes ensconced in the figure of the feminine, as sociologist Nira Yuval Davis has theorised many times in her research on nation building. This notion of women as bearers of honour ties in directly to the supervising of women in Kuwait in the 1990s, leading up to the detainment incident of 2002 where one hundred and fifty women were held by state authorities while leaving ‘mixed parties.’1 Amin makes use of two distinct strategies to introduce a language of complexity into her art works, the first strategy being the use of the mask or veil that is evident in paintings as early as 2007, and the second strategy being the creation of collage or palimpsest by layering. The use of the veil brings forward the theme of the hidden versus, what is and what can be revealed, this alluding to the Islamic notion of hijab as well as serving the practical purpose of protecting the identities of Amin’s models. The layering effect is first achieved by orchestrating scenes say involving clusters of ‘society girls’ who are often styled in deep-hued dresses and bright Louboutins; they are photographed and subsequently some of the photographs are affixed onto canvas or wood and further painted upon, resulting in mixed media works where text may also appear as marginalia. The layering effect creates a narrative of multiplicity as well as providing various tactile possibilities for the physical art object. We notice blue, and later white and yellow veils on the faces of Amin’s heroines depicting a state of separation between what can be seen and what cannot be seen. In Surah Al Nur from the Quran, ‘Say to the believing women that: they should cast down their glances and guard their private parts (by being chaste),’ this hijab of covering and concealing draws parallels in the architecture of traditional Kuwaiti houses in which a curtain or screen acts as separation between male and female compounds of the house. In the artist’s 2013 works, Family Portraits (I and II) the veil takes on a different life, appearing as large decorative flowers that serve an aesthetic need within the painting; by also creating hindrance around identity, the flowers force the viewer to question heteronormative assumptions of the family unit. Amin’s 2011 works, My Country is Ill (I and II) depict a woman in bed, sheets crumpled, her dark hair to the side, she is in an obvious state of discomfort. The bed is a nebulous splatter whose edges seems to keep expanding outwards, the implied state of affliction getting graver, almost like a crime scene. This image perhaps sums up the artist’s own troubled relationship to her homeland for which she has memory and attachment, as well as the sense of not being an entirely free citizen. This time the face of the woman

Drawing Parallels from Literature to Amin’s Art

Hanan al-Shaykh’s groundbreaking novel Women of Sand and Myrrh (1989), depicts an unnamed Gulf country through the explicit narrative lens of its four female inhabitants and their domestic, sexual, and familial lives, leading acclaimed literary figure Edward Said to define the book as: ‘a complex and demanding story of women in the Gulf—oppressed, manipulated, sexually tormented confused ... breathtakingly frank.’2 As Amin portrays a similar society partly made from a fabric of hypocrisy, double standards, and secret omissions under the veneer of a conservative state, there are parallels that can be made with the acclaimed novel. The painter’s work confronts the impact of a state sanctioned psychological violence upon women, as it delves into the hidden lives of the archetypal patriarch: religious preacher, weekend alcoholic; political activist, well-known party-animal; conservative father, and secret playboy. Kuwait, being eager on all fronts to control elements it sees as being transgressive or inimical to the established cultural status quo, has previously shut down a well-received exhibition of Amin’s provocative paintings in the country. The first page of Women of Sand and Myrrh also begins with references to the erasure of free speech, in addition to the confiscation of goods, some of which are as simple as the America imported spice, rosemary.3 Early on, one of the characters in Al Shaykh’s novel is commanded to ‘cover [her]self up, woman,’ just after which one of the novel’s narrators, Suha, states, ‘I was hiding because I was a woman and I was working.’ 4 In this sentence, a woman working and the appearance of a woman both become instances of taboo that somehow need to be placed into a comfortable fixity through guideline and law as determined by the mechanisms of a patriarchal state. In the introduction to this monograph Amin has revealed her interest in addressing taboo, in Al Shaykh’s novel we are also presented with daring fashionistas, women of the Western educated elite who ride motorcycles and gallivant with rockstars. The complicated lives of these women, complete with their families and friends, are depicted in ways similar to the conundrums women in Amin’s own society face. Fighting against the grain, Tamr in Women of Sand and Myrrh fiercely advocates for the education of women; while in Amin’s We’ll Build This City on Art and Love works, the painter questions how best to leave the country and world for future generations, referring to safety, security, and education for all of the state’s citizens. Amin’s The Bullet Series (2011) is a prime example of the exploration of the female subject from one end of the spectrum to the other. The series invokes how women are beaten down through a life cycle of violence, carried either upon the body or the

psyche, thus forcing them to change from butterfly-like, soft, full of colour and levity, as in You are No Ordinary Woman (2010 - 2011), into something that has come in contact with hardness like that of a metal bullet. The works in The Bullet Series were shot through with a hornet rifle, and in all works from the series the image of a winged creature can be detected as accompaniment or tattoo upon the body of the feminine subject. The work Flawed (2010 - 2011) from the same series can be read as a self portrait of the artist, in which the face is again hidden but this time concealed using the artist’s own creative devices, that is a script of Amin’s choosing. On the subject of inventive techniques that writers of the Gulf have employed in their work in order to bypass censorship, critic Hagar Ben Driss explains that Saudi writer, and co-winner of the Arabic Booker in 2011, Raja Alem does not present a closed narrative that operates only on one level of comprehension.5 In order to bring her vision to fruition the writer also makes use of the apparatuses of the state, thus incorporating into her work the very means of surveillance and status quo from which she wishes to break away from. Her 2001 work, Khatam uses religious mystical discourse in a layered text in which doors represent literal entrances as well as the Khatam character’s initiation into sexuality as readers follow the gender ambiguous child into brothels of the underground and so forth. Like her contemporaries who have had to be inventive in ways that attempt circumvent, Amin has relied on humour and parody in her own work. Quoting Umberto Eco in Women Narrating the Gulf: A Gulf of Their Own, Ben Driss describes that by using humour in structure, the entire piece of fiction [or art] becomes destabilising as we know every individual detail to possibly be false, further adding that ‘humour makes us feel the uneasiness of living under a law.’6 For humour and parody, Amin has often sourced from the British writer Lewis Carroll, in particular his works Hunting of The Snark and Alice in Wonderland, from which she has been inspired to create inverted worlds, and the titles of her art works. Piece of the Pie: Who Stole the Tarts? (2014), for example, comments on the mismanaged state of political affairs in the Arab world, as well as the topsy-turvy nature of modern life. The painting depicts a young woman clad in a dress and red heels, her face masked, she holds a finger up to her lips, and in her other hand holds a pie. While men bicker and fight over the largest piece of the pie, like Alice from Alice in Wonderland the young woman grows tall until finally attaining an omnipresence of sorts. In this work Amin’s protagonist functions as a coquette in addition to being the one who towers over a cast of men, this second representation is perhaps Amin’s nod to matriarchal society or a certain social soft power. One of the smallest countries in the world in terms of area, Kuwait has begun large scale development projects since the 2000s, notably these include the Jaber Al Ahmad Hospital, South Surra, slated to be the largest medical centre in Kuwait complete with state of the art medical equipment. The building of it commenced in 2009 but to date it has not seen completion. The Silk City ‘Dream’ project, Madinat al-Hareer in Subaya, northern Kuwait is the largest real estate project to be approved by the government of Kuwait with its design being made public in 2006, yet as of May 2014 its construction has been put on hold. These construction projects are referenced in Amin’s latest palimpsest works, Pipe Dreams (2014) and Waiting for Dodo (2014). With

the image of skulls in one piece and the reference to extinct ‘dodos’ Amin presents not confidence but possible despair in the building schemes. Rendered in a sombre palette of mostly grey and brown, at once evocative of nostalgia for days gone by, the layered works make us conscious of what may turn into a stalled future if attention is not paid to more pressing social needs and concerns. The various layers that make up the artworks have themselves been salvaged out of larger fragments, on top of which further mediums are superimposed. In the case of Pipe Dreams (2014), the pipe from René Magritte’s famous Ceci n’est pas une pipe makes an appearance in Amin’s work yet again, all of the other fragments coming together to pose: Do we build a city on art and love, or on something else entirely? Beginning with her examination into the private lives of Khaleeji men and women, Amin can be situated not only in an art historical cannon but also within a broader discussion on Arab gender and sexuality as previously explored by female intellectuals in literature and art. For the artist, threads that pull together various preoccupations with history, time, and what progress may mean for a nation state, as well as for national identity, are always hinged upon the imagination, and find their power in being viewed and in being interacted with as ‘open situation[s] in movement.’7 In the epilogue to Women of Sand and Myrrh, Suha looks to the desert, reminiscing about its simpler past and thinking of human beings who had to ‘rely on their imaginations to contrive a way of making their hearts beat faster [...] to search unaided for a hidden gleam of light.’8 Similarly, we can conclude that creativity, art, and the imagination may in fact be our ultimate saving-grace—an insight directly derived from the links that Amin makes visible in her work.

Haya Al-Mughni, Women in Kuwait: The Politics of Gender (London: Saqi Books, 2001).

Book jacket blurb provided by Bloomsbury Publishing.

Hanan Al Shaykh, Women of Sand and Myrrh (New York: Anchor Books, 1992).

Ibid.

Hager Ben Driss, ‘Women Narrating the Gulf: A Gulf of Their Own,’ Journal of Arabic Literature, Vol. 36, No. 2 (2005).

Umberto Eco in Hager Ben Driss, ‘Women Narrating the Gulf: A Gulf of Their Own,’ Journal of Arabic Literature, Vol. 36, No. 2 (2005).

Ibid.

Hanan Al Shaykh, Women of Sand and Myrrh (New York: Anchor Books, 1992).

Shurooq Amin: Through the Looking-Glass House By Maymanah Farhat

For the past eight years of her artistic career, Shurooq Amin has explored the social institutions that define her native Kuwait. In her mixed media portraits, religion, the state, and family structure collide with realities that exist beyond their confines. At the centre of the artist’s ongoing investigation are invariable power struggles that arise as individuals are faced with a society encoded by conformity. Through anonymous portraits, she explores the hidden lives of multi-generational subjects, who must navigate the underlying schisms and overt contradictions of the country’s conservative culture. The artist’s combined approach to portraiture, which brings together photography, painting, and collage with vivid realism, provides an aesthetic analogy of the separate realms behind its traditionalist facade.

woven into the artist’s portraits, such conceptualism can also be read as a comment on the precarious origins of social norms. Amin began employing this method of integrating media in 2007, when she first experimented with collaged canvases that were composed around photographs of her children and their friends. With the start of her Synthesis series that year, these mixed media paintings were mounted onto painted wood then reworked so that the physical indications of their multilayered surfaces are partially concealed. Although such experimentation was initially instinctual (or ‘organic’), this technique facilitates the artist’s conceptual approach to portraying Kuwaiti society and its many intricacies. Centrally positioning her canvases within the borders of the wooden blocks, Amin ‘frames’ her protagonists with a sort of stacked (or nesting) dimensionality. The additional space that surrounds her young heroine in This Child of Mine (2007-2008), for example, seems to extend the picture plane of the original composition, further isolating her figure within the seclusion of an interior space. In certain works, such as those of her Synthesis (2007-2009), Society Girls (2009-2011), and The Bullet (20092011) series, the placement of figures in the middle ground of the composition in lieu of the foreground, the conventional stage of portraiture, furthers this sense of disassociation from the viewer.

Amin’s protagonists range in social positions, and differ in the ways they navigate Khaleeji mores. Some, such as the children of her Synthesis series (2007-2009) appear burdened by the pretenses and expectations of their society; others bypass the formalities of traditionalism and freely indulge in hedonistic fantasies, albeit behind closed doors. There are heroes and heroines, and vixens and villains that occupy her compositions, alongside defiant self-portraits, and boys and girls who stand at the threshold of adolescence, carrying the psychic weight of their surroundings. Throughout Amin’s works is a vantage point that can be linked to the global development of feminist art, particularly as she renders ‘the personal within the realm of the political.’1 Despite its various incarnations across continents, feminist art is ‘self-conscious’ and stems from an ‘informed social and political position.’2

The artist’s formal interplay between photographs and a painterly reworking of the composition also serves to guide the viewer across the depicted narratives of her works, placing a focus on revealing elements such as the gestures, posturing, or articles of clothing of her subjects that indicate socio-religious practices. In Medusas Resting (2010), for example, the crossed legs of eight women are painted with bright golden highlights that grab the viewer’s attention and emphasise the expressed confidence of their body language. This seated assembly appears deeply engaged in conversation and disregards external gazes. The background of the interior scene is painted as a black and crimson abstraction that seems to ignite the sun-kissed glow of exposed limbs. Comprised of a grouping of four women that is repeated as a horizontal mirror image, the scene includes a running frieze of poetry beneath the stationary figures. The handwritten text also appears in place of the Gorgons’ snakes, as words seem to fly into the darkness that surrounds them.

In Kuwait, although women artists have actively exhibited since the beginning of its mid-century modernist period, few have openly engaged political subject matter in their work and have often acknowledged the limitations of what is socially acceptable.3 Today, a growing number of artists are confronting its politically determined social order by exposing its hypocrisy and corruption through a multitude of conceptual strategies; among them, Amin has led the way in exploring the patriarchal matrix at its core.

Form

As a figurative artist who seeks to explore the underside of a society that functions with an element of secrecy, Amin has sought unconventional pictorial devices in order to enter the conflicted spaces where private lives unfold. Her compositions begin as photographic portraits, a process that generates a level of intimacy between the artist and her models. This initial approach also signals a form of documentation given that: ‘Photographic images are pieces of evidence in an ongoing biography or history.’4 As the image-maker captures a picture through the lens of her camera, however, the realistic nature of such imagery is dependent on a degree of subjectivity. Moreover, the very act of executing a photographic portrait constitutes an exchange, a social interaction that engenders a type of role-playing on the part of the subject. The appeal of photography, argues Coco Fusco, lies in ‘the promise of apprehending who we are, not only as private individuals but also as members of social and cultural groups, as public citizens.’5 By photographing her subjects, Amin pinpoints the social image of Kuwait, which she then deconstructs by incorporating excerpts from these studies into mixed media compositions that are realised with painting and collage. This creates a form of realism based on various pictorial illusions. Given the social themes that are

Signifiers

In addition to text and the symbolism of heroines rendered as mythological creatures, Medusas Resting contains small bullet holes distributed across the canvas. The Bullet series works are distinguished by the artist’s use of a sniper gun to create such openings, a performative element that emphatically states the degree to which women’s bodies are policed, particularly in the realm of sexuality. Each installment of the series is accompanied by the bullet casings that were left over after creating its perforation, serving as an archival element of the artist’s process that is equally affecting. As in all of Amin’s works during this recent period of her career, the characters of Medusas Resting are shown wearing thinly painted veils that hide their identities. While providing anonymity, this detail simultaneously serves as a symbolic motif that can ‘represent the unrepresentable.’6 Abayas and veils appear throughout her mixed media works. Beginning with It’s a Man’s World (2011), other coverings such as masks,

visors, sunglasses, and flowers replace traditional shrouds, and similarly dislocate the function of portraiture as a mode of representing the essence or characteristics of a human subject. Instead, Amin’s portraits are representative of social norms or deviating behaviour, usually as variants of passivity or pomposity. ‘Veiling’ as a signifier appeared early on in her mixed media work. In Can You See the Light? (2007-2008), two children are shown in profile and concealed from full view as a painterly screen is placed over their double portrait. Highlights in the upper right portion of the composition indicate a source of light outside the picture plane, implying an alternative to the alienated state within its frame. As in several of the pensive portraits of Synthesis, Amin’s young protagonists are shown at the beginning stages of a veiled condition seemingly lost or withdrawn even in their childhood homes. The chaos that envelops the boys and girls of the series in the form of abstracted areas of loose brushwork is also suggestive. The social conditions, interactions, and scenarios that are described in the artist’s compositions primarily take place in domestic settings. In the beginning phase of this larger body of work, her subjects are portrayed in dim interiors defined by a single spotlight that leaves surrounding areas blanketed in shadows. Later, as Amin entered the self-gratifying world of Kuwaiti playboys, the Arab living room became flooded with light as luxurious environments and their pleasure-inducing trappings, such as bottles of whisky, hookahs, scantily clad women, and sometimes the company of other men, give way to realised fantasies. The rare, open air scenes of these ‘weekend partygoers’ are painted as luscious gardens, where emerald-coloured ivy vines spread across the edges of the composition, creating a secret Eden. Although such scenes depart from the indoor sanctuaries of other works, they too revert to the concept of domesticity in modern day Kuwait. By evoking the principle design of Islamic architecture in which courtyard gardens are essential to private residences, an internal form of paradise that is protected from what might lie beyond its walls, Amin hints at the patriarchal hypocrisy that informs moral codes. Objects that appear in such works, whether collaged or painted onto the canvas, frequently point to a population that teeters between tradition and globalised consumerist culture. A metal coffee pot next to a bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label (a favourite import among Arabs); a strand of prayer beads in one hand, a glass of liquor in the other; fedoras alongside ghutras; or Louis Vuitton bags as accessories to keffiyehs. These items, and more, are the stuff of her Kuwaiti subjects. This depiction of the country’s changing material culture brings to mind Theodor Adorno’s observation that: Perspectives must be fashioned that displace and estrange the world, reveal it to be with its rifts and crevices…To gain such perspectives without velleity or violence, entirely from felt contact with its objects—this alone is the task of thought. It is the simplest of all things, because the situation calls imperatively for such knowledge indeed because consummate negativity, once squarely faced, delineates the mirror-image of its opposite.7 The German philosopher’s conclusion that a mirror image will result from such articulation of thought is especially apt for a discussion of Amin’s works. A fractured

looking glass shields the artist as she stares out towards the viewer in the surrealist composition This is Not a Pipe: A Deconstruction (2012). In Amin’s Arabian Gothic (2011), a new take on the iconic American painting is distorted with the illusion of a partitioned mirror that splinters the composition. Red vertical lines form the boundaries of its panels, as portions of the painting appear in irregular succession. The arm of Amin’s heroine, for example, is rendered as misaligned fragments while she holds the folds of a floral patterned abaya close to her body; a sign of modesty unquestioningly displayed even in the intimate moment of a family portrait. The face of the artist’s male protagonist is similarly disfigured, appearing as pieces of a puzzle in need of placement. This destabilising visual effect situates the viewer as though standing before a reflection of a world that instantly becomes his or her own. A postmodern interpretation of Grant Wood’s regionalist 1930 masterpiece, Arabian Gothic depicts an unidentified couple that embodies the social status of the Khaleeji upper-middle class: wealthy and trendy, yet outwardly abiding by what the artist describes as ‘a culture interspersed and immersed in socio-political ritualism.’ Amin’s depiction is based on the implied signification of the original painting, whose rural midwestern figures stand as idealised representations of Depression era America. The couple occupies most of the composition, as the man peacocks for the viewer while slyly flashing a jeweled wristwatch, and the woman’s ballooned yet ornate robe swallows her in a flattened field of petals and vines. The whimsical satire of Arabian Gothic is twofold. Firstly, the painting’s citation of a recognisable cultural reference allows Amin to approach the gravity of her subject matter through humour or irony. Popular images, song and book titles, or pictorial excerpts from historical works initially pull the viewer into her provocative portraits while underscoring their polemical content. Moreover, Amin’s sources are often found in American popular culture or Western literature or art, specifically examples that are known worldwide, suggesting that the social maladies she addresses are fundamentally trans-cultural despite the detailed settings and cultural signifiers surrounding her figures. 1

Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, eds., The Power of Feminist Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, INC., 1994).

2 3

Ibid. For example, these challenges are described by pioneering Kuwaiti artists in Dialogues of the Present, ed. Fran Lloyd (London: I.B. Tauris, 1999).

Susan Sontag, On Photography (New York: Macmillan, 2011).

Coco Fusco, ‘Racial Time, Racial Marks, Racial Metaphors,’ Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self, eds. Coco Fusco and Brian Wallis (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 2003).

Zineb Sedira, ‘Mapping the Illusive,’ Veil: Veiling, Representation and Contemporary Art, eds. David A. Bailey and Gilane Tawadros (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2003).

Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia, trans. E.F.N. Jephcott (New York: Verso, 1994).

Shurooq Amin

Born in Kuwait to a Syrian mother and a Kuwaiti father, Shurooq Amin is a leading interdisciplinary artist who is known for her provocative mixed media paintings. In addition to Amin’s noteworthy career as a visual artist, she is a widely published, Pushcart Prize nominated poet and holds a doctorate in Creative Writing and Ekphrasis from Warnborough College, England. Utilising a postmodern approach to portraiture that combines photography and painting, Amin depicts her anonymous, multi-generational figures with whimsy and irony as she reveals the intrinsic contradictions of a conservative society built on hidden lives, collective denial, and widespread corruption. Exploring the cultural chasms of modern-day Arab society as it becomes increasingly escapist and steered by global consumerism and popular culture, Amin’s works frequently return to one of the most universally taboo subjects: the traditional familial structure and the gender roles that maintain it. Exhibiting since the mid 1990s, Amin’s paintings are housed in public and private collections in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. Her selected solo and group exhibitions include: Ayyam Gallery DIFC, Dubai (2014), Ayyam Gallery Al Quoz, Dubai (2013), Lahd Gallery, London (2011); CAN, New York (2010), Tilal Gallery, Kuwait (2010), and International Cairo Art Biennale (2008). In 2013, Amin was awarded the title of ‘Artist of the Year’ by the Arab Woman Awards, Kuwait chapter and was the first female Kuwaiti artist to be auctioned at Christie’s in 2012. A retrospective of her work was featured in the biannual art journal, Contemporary Practices: Visual Arts from the Middle East.

Paintings (2007-2014)

Synthesis (2007-2009)

Citizen of the Planet Synthesis series 2007-2008 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 120 x 120 cm

Blues Synthesis series 2007-2008 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 70 x 70 cm

Child of the City Synthesis series 2007-2008 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 70 x 70 cm

Glow Synthesis series 2007-2008 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 70 x 70 cm

Under the Abaya Synthesis series 2007-2008 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 80 x 50 cm

This Child of Mine Synthesis series 2007-2008 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 80 x 50 cm

Can You See the Light? Synthesis series 2007-2008 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 170 x 120 cm

Still Proud Synthesis series 2007-2008 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 170 x 120 cm

I Love You Synthesis series 2007-2008 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 120 x 120 cm

Leave Me Alone II Synthesis series 2009 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 80 x 50 cm

Society Girls

(2009-2011)

Society Girls 1 Society Girls series 2009 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 120 x 220 cm

Another Kind of Love Society Girls series 2009-2010 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 120 x 170 cm

Freedom Society Girls series 2009-2010 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 79 x 90 cm

Queen Society Girls series 2009-2010 Mixed media on canvas 100 x 135 cm

Give Me The Chance To Walk On Water Society Girls series 2010 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 90 x 120 cm

Society Girls 2 Society Girls series 2010 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 100 x 220 cm

Inside The Diary Society Girls series 2010 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 120 x 170 cm

And Then Love Found Her Society Girls series 2010 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 90 x 190 cm

At Your Service Society Girls series 2010 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 170 x 70 cm

How is it that You Extract Water from a Stone? Society Girls series 2010 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 90 x 225 cm

I Forgive you Society Girls series 2010 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 120 x 100 cm

My Louboutins Society Girls series 2010-2011 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 120 x 100 cm

The Bullet

(2009-2011)

You Are No Ordinary Woman The Bullet series 2009-2010 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 120 x 100 cm

Self-Portrait The Bullet series 2010 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 90 x 190 cm

Abaya Tryptich 1 The Bullet series 2010 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 170 x 70 cm

Abaya Tryptich 2 The Bullet series 2011 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 170 x 70 cm

Medusas Resting The Bullet series 2010 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 80 x 170 cm

Abaya Tryptich 3 The Bullet series 2010 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 170 x 70 cm

Hala Feb Baby The Bullet series 2010 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 120 x 110 cm

Is there a Problem, Baby? The Bullet series 2011 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 120 x 140 cm

Flawed The Bullet series 2011 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 105 x 105 cm

Take Me To Heaven The Bullet series 2011 Mixed media on canvas 150 x 90 cm

My Country is Ill 1 The Bullet series 2011 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 170 x 120 cm

My Country is Ill 2 The Bullet series 2011 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wooden board 170 x 120 cm

It’s a Man’s World (2011-2012)

The Big Bling It’s a Man’s World series 2011 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 150 x 120 cm

The Kiss It’s a Man’s World series 2011 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 130 x 120 cm

He Loves Me He Loves Me Not It’s a Man’s World series 2011 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 120 x 150 cm

See No Evil Say No Evil Hear No Evil It’s a Man’s World series 2011 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 120 x 220 cm

Hedonism It’s a Man’s World series 2011 Mixed media on canvas and wood 120 x 170 cm

My Harem in Heaven It’s a Man’s World series 2011 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 120 x 170 cm

Arabian Gothic: A Deconstruction It’s a Man’s World series 2011 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 150 x 120 cm

Society Men It’s a Man’s World series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 110 x 160 cm

Diwaniya High It’s a Man’s World series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 110 x 170 cm

Love is in the Air It’s a Man’s World series 2012 Mixed media on canvas and wood 110 x 160 cm

His Dilemma It’s a Man’s World series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 150 x 120 cm

In the Closet: The Coffee Jug It’s a Man’s World series 2012 Mixed media on canvas and wood 130 x 110 cm

My Mistress and Family It’s a Man’s World series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 160 x 110 cm

I Need a Hero It’s a Man’s World series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 110 x 180 cm

She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not It’s a Man’s World series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 110 x 160 cm

I Like Him I Like Her It’s a Man’s World series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 120 x 240 cm

The Tale of the Terrorist and the Politician Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a Manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s World series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 100 x 175 cm

Popcornographic

(2012-2013)

The Last Straw Popcornographic series 2012 Mixed media on canvas 75 x 450 cm

This Is Not a Pipe: A Deconstruction Popcornographic series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 120 x 170 cm

Ceci nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;est pas une femme Arabe avec trois boucles dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;oreilles perles Popcornographic series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 120 x 170 cm

A Tale of Two Muslims Popcornographic series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 100 x 150 cm

The Dates Of Wrath Popcornographic series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 150 x 170 cm

To Kill a Mocking Girl Popcornographic series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 150 x 150 cm

A Man of No Importance Popcornographic series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 170 x 120 cm

Natural Born Censors Popcornographic series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 170 x 150 cm

An Arabian Tragedy Popcornographic series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood and framed 128 x 179 cm

Blind New World Popcornographic series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood and framed 170 x 150 cm

I Know Why the Stateless Bird Sings: The Case of Nora Cassandra Popcornographic series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood and framed 150 x 150 cm

One Hundred Years of Darkness Popcornographic series 2012 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood and framed 150 x 150 cm

Of Wives and Men Popcornographic series 2013 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 200 x 120 cm

All Quiet on the Eastern Front Popcornographic series 2013 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood 150 x 150 cm

50 Shades of Tattoo Popcornographic series 2013 Mixed media on canvas mounted on wood and framed 150 x 150 cm

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll Build this City on Art and Love

(2013-2014)

This Way Up: Painting the Roses Red We’ll Build this City on Art and Love series 2013 Mixed media on canvas 120 x 100 cm

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See the Beauty Here We’ll Build this City on Art and Love series 2013 Mixed media on canvas 177 x 128 x 13 cm

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Family Portrait 1 Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll Build this City on Art and Love series 2013 Mixed media on canvas and wood frame 148 x 128 x 13 cm

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Family Portrait 2 Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll Build this City on Art and Love series 2013 Mixed media on canvas and wood frame 150 x 128 x 13 cm

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Through the Looking Glass: Child Bride We’ll Build this City on Art and Love series 2014 Mixed media on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Piece of the Pie: Who Stole the Tarts? We’ll Build this City on Art and Love series 2014 Mixed media on canvas 200 x 150 cm

105

The King of Hearts We’ll Build this City on Art and Love series 2014 Mixed media on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Fashionista We’ll Build this City on Art and Love series 2014 Mixed media on canvas 200 x 150 cm

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Pollutoland Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll Build this City on Art and Love series 2014 Mixed media on canvas 120 x 187 cm

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We are the Future: Picking up the Pieces Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll Build this City on Art and Love series 2014 Mixed media on canvas 87 x 130 cm

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MARA7=7ARAM Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll Build this City on Art and Love series 2014 Mixed media on canvas 105 x 460.5 cm

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A Tangled Tale Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll Build this City on Art and Love series 2014 Mixed media on canvas 100 x 150 cm

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Waiting for Dodo Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll Build this City on Art and Love series 2014 Mixed media on paper in a glass and stainless steel frame 101 x 135 cm

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Education and Beyond Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll Build this City on Art and Love series 2014 Mixed media on paper in a glass and stainless steel frame 101 x 135 cm

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Pipe Dreams Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll Build this City on Art and Love series 2014 Mixed media on paper in a glass and stainless steel frame 101 x 135 cm

115

The Story of the Bedoon Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll Build this City on Art and Love series 2014 Photo book 70 x 100 cm

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Maymanah Farhat

Maymanah Farhat is a New York-based art historian specialising in modern and contemporary Arab art. Farhat has curated exhibitions in the United States, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon and is a curatorial advisor to the Arab American National Museum. Her reviews and essays have appeared in publications such as ArtAsiaPacific magazine, Art Journal, Callaloo: Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters, and Journal of Middle East Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Studies, in addition to anthologies, monographs, and exhibition catalogues. She is the Artistic Director and Chief Writer of Ayyam Gallery.

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Zarmina Rafi

Zarmina Rafi, born in Lahore, Pakistan, is a full-time Writer and Publications Coordinator at Ayyam Gallery, Dubai. Educated at McGill University, Montreal, she has a Master’s Degree in English Literature. In 2010, she studied with leading figures of American Conceptual writing, Vanessa Place and Charles Bernstein. From 20082013, she worked at the largest daily newspaper in Canada, the Toronto Star. In 2013, she wrote short bilingual (Urdu and English) talks on shifting South Asian Identity in its North American Diaspora for the Art Gallery of Mississauga’s exhibition, 011+91 | 011+92. Her writing on art and culture has been published in the following venues, Art Now Pakistan (Karachi); The Friday Times (Lahore); The Tribune Express (Karachi); Toronto Star (Toronto); Toronto Review of Books (Toronto) Vallum: New International Poetics (Montreal) and The Volta (Tucson). Recent writing awards include, Santa Fe Art Institute Writer’s Residency, New Mexico (2014); Etgar Keret House Writer’s Residency, short list, Krakow (2013) and the Ontario Arts Council Works in Progress and Writer’s Reserve Grants, Toronto (various, 2011-2013).

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Ayyam Gallery

Founded in Damascus in 2006, Ayyam Gallery is recognised as a leading cultural voice in the region, representing a roster of Middle Eastern artists with an international profile and museum presence. Spaces in Beirut, Dubai, Jeddah, and London have further succeeded in showcasing the work of Middle Eastern artists with the aim of educating a wider audience about the art of this significant region.

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