Filed under: Cultural Re-Expressions 101, Home | Tags: acrylic, cultural re-expressions, painting
girl with doll
Over lunch, my brother Mohammed asked me if I knew who, from Inspire Advertising, bought one of my paintings from 2004′s Cultural Re-Expressions 101 exhibition. I told him that my memory doesn’t extend that far back. So he showed me this picture he took of one of my paintings outside the company’s offices, in the Alsaleh Building. It’s always exciting to hear when someone bumps into one of my painting! (more…)
Filed under: Cultural Re-Expressions 101, Exhibitions | Tags: acrylic, alkandari, culture, Exhibition, Kuwait, Paintings, re-expression, tareq
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A tour of the 2004 exhibition Cultural Re-Expressions 101. The idea and production was my brother Tareq’s and the paintings were done by me. Enjoy!
Filed under: Cultural Re-Expressions 101, Paintings | Tags: acrylics, cultural, Kuwait, painting, re-expressions, traditional
sharbika, 2003, acrylic on canvas, 185x325 cm
Filed under: Cultural Re-Expressions 101, Home | Tags: acrylics, contemporary, homes, interior, Kuwait, modern, painting, tradition, yelwa
yelwa, 2003, acrylic on canvas, 300cm x 179cm
This painting currently resides in Tareq’s office. I think it is my most travelled (within Kuwait and out) painting. It has yet to settle down in a permanent home. It is a little nomadic so I don’t see that happening in the near future. For now, it looks great where it is.
Filed under: Cultural Re-Expressions 101, Home | Tags: abbas mallek, acrylic, bird's eye view, dancers, homes, Kuwait
bird's eye drummers, 2003, acrylic on canvas
Mai and Adeeb’s painting is accompanied by two sculptures by Abbas Mallek on the left of the photo. Mai wrote to me that it ‘plays the music for Abbas Mallek’s wonderful dancing Kuwaiti man and woman’.
Filed under: Cultural Re-Expressions 101, Paintings | Tags: acrylic, aisha al-marta, black and white, colorful, dama, Kuwait, large, painting, people, singers, television, tradition
singing woman with a television, 2004, acrylic on canvas, 300cm x 180cm
Filed under: Cultural Re-Expressions 101, Paintings | Tags: bench, black and white, colorful, dolls, girl, kashi, Kuwait, painting, photograph, pregnant, puberty, rug, tradition, woman
girl with doll: the black and white photo, 2003, acrylic on canvas, 125cm x 280cm
Filed under: Cultural Re-Expressions 101, Paintings | Tags: abaya, acrylics, anxiety, ball, fear, fennecs, girls, horseman, Kuwait, Middle East, neighbors, nejdiyas, painting, scary, slippers, women
the ball catcher, 2003, acrylic on canvas, 300cm x 180cm
Filed under: Cultural Re-Expressions 101, Paintings | Tags: acrylic, color, dance, fabric, Kuwait, old, painting, players, seamstress, sewing, shells, singers, tiles, tradition
tagagat, 2003, acrylic on canvas, 290cm x 180cm
Filed under: Cultural Re-Expressions 101, Paintings | Tags: acrylic, beetles, colorful, desert, fabrics, fennec, girls, Kuwait, painting, traditional, yelwa
girl with a slingshot, 2003, acrylic on canvas, 175cm x 175cm
Filed under: Cultural Re-Expressions 101, Paintings, Rants & Raves | Tags: acrylic, Kuwait, men, Middle East, painting, qutra, sharbaka, singing
sharbika, 2003, acrylic on canvas, 185x325 cm
I loved painting the qutras (headscarves) on these men. The main character in the white, summer dishdasha is a little like the eating boy. He’s in his own world, sitting on his throne atop a hill, oblivious to all. In fact, it’s funny because this man in all his arrogance was based on someone I know; and who is the father of the boy who inspired boy eating. Again, this painting has little bits here and there that are influenced by my childhood memories of seeing these singers on Kuwait TV. The guy with the glass eye, the tantric state of these men. The painting is very nostalgic and is as much about the ashtray and matchbox as it is about these singing men.
My only regret about this painting (and a few others in the same series) is not stretching it myself.
Added February 4th, 2010: I had an e-mail complaint today that by ‘criticizing’ my painting (re: last line), I have ‘lower[ed] the artistic and physical value of the painting’. In what way is it ‘criticizing’ when I am ruing the fact that I didn’t personally handle the stretching of the painting-which was, incidentally, stretched AFTER completion? It’s such a shame when people read sloppily through my words. I am EXTREMELY fanatic about not only what and how I deliver my thoughts, but about the specific words I use. I write thoughtfully and deliberately. So please use great thought and deliberation when reading what I write. I would appreciate it, and it would save me a lot of trouble and heartache.
Filed under: Cultural Re-Expressions 101, Paintings | Tags: acrylic, boy, eating, kuwaiti, large, mawash, Middle East, mother, Paintings, sisters, traditional
boy eating, 2003, acrylic on canvas, 190x200 cm
In 2004, my brother Tareq and I collaborated on an exhibition of his conception and design which he used ‘Cultural Re-Expressions 101′ as a working title for. Soon, that title disappeared and it became ‘that show you did with your brother Tareq at the Life Shopping Center’. Basically, he had this idea to present a collection of paintings which depicted traditional Kuwaiti life through the eyes of a contemporary artist (me). It was very challenging for me because any time I work on something that is a ‘project’, I buckle up and I start churning up shit. So I had to be very careful not to be too literal and not to lose myself in the process. So for each painting, to keep myself sane and stay on the path which is truly Ghadah, I decided to ravel some kind of a storyline that related to me and my memories somehow. Another challenge was painting men. I can paint a man but I don’t enjoy it. It just goes against my natural flow of things.
