Huthaifa Hejazi is hosting Riyadh’s first gathering for drawing public life during the sixth edition of Misc Art Week, which began on Wednesday.
An interior designer and an artist, Hejazi, 33, was invited by the Misk Art Institute to supervise a group of aspiring Saudi and foreign artists focused on still life drawing.
The classes, or “conferences” offered by Misk Art Institute, are the result of an informal community in Riyadh who practiced life drawing together until Masaha got a residency at the Prince Faisal bin Fahd Arts Hall, the home of Misk Art Institute in Riyadh. Where they have been gathering weekly since August this year. The staging of such public-spirited gatherings, which until this week used to be held in private in the Kingdom, is another example of the changing times in Saudi Arabia.
“Hosting live painting and drawing here is a big step for us, and I am doing everything I can to support the community,” Hejazi told Arab News.
“It is a new experience for us; Life drawing helps you hone your skills,” said Mansour Alotabi, an engineer working at the Ministry of Energy, who has been painting since childhood.
One of the most popular events during Misc Art Week are the life drawing and painting gatherings, which end on 10 December. They are free and open to the public, as are all activities that take place during the event.
This year marked the most dynamic and comprehensive edition yet to Misch Art Institute’s flagship event, seen through a wide range of art exhibitions, and designed to reflect the organization’s mission to strengthen the local and regional creative community. A series of talks and workshops. The art week, as stated by Mashael Al-Yahya, creative director of Misk Art Institute, marks the full return of the event after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This edition, in its scale, is similar to the one held in 2019,” Al-Yahya told Arab News. “But due to COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021, we needed to downsize. We completely scaled back our programming at this year’s Art Week, which primarily looked at the art and design market called Artist Street.
The Art & Design Market features a series of white cube open-air spaces in various heights, offering free booths to 81 creatives from across the state based on an open-call process. Works in the range of ceramics, paintings, accessories and jewelry are on show. Like a mini art fair, guests can acquire, source, and commission one-off works.
Abeer Al-Zayed, an artist from Al-Baha, came to Riyadh to showcase his paintings of delicate and colorful portraits of anonymous women at the Art and Design Market, participating in the Misc event for the fifth time. “We are seeing the development of the art scene in Saudi Arabia, and it makes me very happy,” she told Arab News.
Other highlights included the two-day Creative Forum, which brought together top speakers on arts and culture from the Middle East and internationally. Artists include Emirati Sultan Soud Al-Qassemi, founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation; Artists such as Dr. Nada Shabout, Regents Professor of Art History and Coordinator of the Contemporary Arab and Muslim Cultural Studies Initiative at the University of North Texas, and leading Saudi woman Safya Binzagar.
On the second floor of the Prince Faisal bin Fahd Arts Hall was the third edition of the Misk Art Grant, one of the most sought-after grants in the region with funds of SR1 million ($266,632) distributed among three to 10 artists and collectives. it was done. from across the Arab world. In the tightly curated show, artists showcased their work, which was built around the theme of Sarab this year, which means mirage in Arabic. Worth noting was how the tasks probed the relationship between motion, memory, and thoughts related to the visible and invisible.
This year’s recipients included Saudi artists Abdulmohsen Albinali and Juri Alfadel; Mohammed Kilito from Ukraine, Athoub Al-Busaily from Kuwait and Rawdha Al-Ketbi and Zeinab Alhashmi from the United Arab Emirates.
AlHashemi presented “The Grid,” a powerful series of six steel beam sculptures recreating cylinder pipes found in the Prince Faisal bin Fahd Fine Arts Hall. The gold and black cylinders, some standing tall and straight while others are bent, feature black appliqués on the interlocking beams, making the piece almost look like a piece of jewelry. They emphasize the artist’s attempt to play on the visibility and invisibility of the pipes, almost to say that the objects around us are much more prominent and important than we think.
“The cylinders don’t seem invisible, but when people are looking at the art, they don’t notice them or they act like they don’t see them in a way,” Alhashmi told Arab News.
“I wanted to dive deeper into the meanings behind grids and also how different artists have used them in the past, like Agnes Martin,” she said.
“For him, the grid was very meditative, and it was a way of applying some kind of harmony to his horizontal and vertical lines,” she said.
As visitors come and go through the venue, they pass the exhibit azima, which means “invitation” or “getting together” in Arabic. Inside are works by a range of Gulf creatives reflecting the historical and cultural significance of hospitality in the region. Videos, installations, photography and paintings demonstrate the persistence of collective gatherings, sharing and shared memories. The show features significant works by Saudi artist Filwa Nazar, such as “The Family Series”, dating from 2015, in which cutouts are placed over the artist’s family portraits.
There are images of weddings by acclaimed Saudi photographer Tasmin Alsultan, paintings by Emirati artist Khaled Al-Banna – the vibrant mix of paint on his colorful abstract canvases akin to a dynamic social gathering – and Elham Aldawsari’s photographs of “Subabat” (2020) Saudi women His research captures the history of hospitality workers.
Large pictures of Aldavasari greet visitors at the entrance just as the sabbaths – the women who serve drinks and food at all-women’s events – do. The artist, who grew up during the 1990s when the internet was not easily available in the state, showcases the memories and stories of these women who, through their personal and professional lives, have always served others, Have seen many changes. who have shaped their country over the past few decades.