Doha, October 30 (QNA) – The cultural and artistic projects put forward by the State of Qatar institutions concerned with creativity awarded Qatari female fine artists a spacious place to unleash their talents and contribute to the reconstruction of society, life and the surrounding with various forms of art, schools and contemporary trends. Qatar Museums, Msheireb Museums, the Public Works Authority (Ashghal) and the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy presented initiatives that absorbed the creativity of the Qatari plastic artists and employed it to serve the country and its society.
Thus, the Qatari female fine artist succeeded in raising creativity to global heights through creative participation in exhibitions and festivals at home and abroad, and in various artistic and cultural initiatives as part of the preparations to receive Qatars guests for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, with the aesthetics of the art that made Qatar an open museum in preparation for the tournament.
To shed light on the position of the female fine artist in the cultural scene and future ambitions, and the role of art to keep up with societal, cultural, local, and humanitarian transformation, Qatari artists explained to Qatar News Agency (QNA) that Qatar and the Gulf’s cultural and societal heritage represents a fountain of inspiration for their aesthetic vision, just as the rhythm of reality, its challenges and questions, are stimuli to express the spirit of this age and its issues through art.
The pioneering fine artist Wafika Sultan Al Essa represents a role model in drawing inspiration and highlighting the Qatari folklore through her well-known and distinguished creative experience at the level of the Gulf, the Arab world and at the international level, where her experience has distinguished itself since its inception in the early 1970s. She is the first artist to practice fine arts in Qatar, and one of the first Qatari women to study art academically and specialize in it professionally, after obtaining a bachelor’s degree in applied arts from Cairo University.
In her creative works, Al Essa was inspired by her cultural heritage, including motifs, stories and songs. Her paintings reflected Qataris’ relationship with the sea and the fishing traditions that began to disappear after the boom of the oil industry, in addition to her use of Islamic decorative arts and the aesthetics of Arabic script in an experimental framework. She has participated in many local, Arab and international exhibitions, where her works were shown in Morocco, Kuwait, Tunisia, Paris and London, and in the permanent exhibition of the Arab Museum of Modern Art. In 2014, she was awarded the Arab Woman Award for best Qatari artist. She is currently participating in the Ruwad Artist programme organized by Qatar Museums at the Fire Station – the artists’ residence.
Among her distinguished experiences, her participation in the artistic events of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 with the murals that adorn the city of Doha, and her artwork about the championship cup, as well as her paintings around the coastal heritage village of Al Mafjar, which Qatar Museums has designated a project to restore and preserve its architectural and decorative elements.
In an exclusive statement to QNA, Wafika Sultan confirmed that these actions and participations reflect her passion for local and Arab issues, and her expression of her identity that interacts with humanitarian issues, her love for beauty and her eagerness to express those meanings with her artistic tools and colors stored in her memory and derived from her heritage.
About her approach and style, Wafika Sultan said that she adopts an expressive style, and that all of her works are derived from her own environment full of beauty and intricate icons, such as the rich Gulf architecture with its white colors and elements, its relationship to the sea, the golden desert sands, its magnificent palms, and the ‘Sidr trees’ with their beautiful greenery, and the charming nature of the blue sky and the sea with its wide horizon. In addition to her keenness to employ the aesthetics of Gulf ornaments and fashion in their bright colors. She also uses the formation of her paintings by drawing lines and Islamic Arab motifs.
She asserts that her academic studies of art have reinforced her method of continuous research and experimentation in the various stages of the development of her fine career, and the way she seeks to achieve her own style and artistic personality by integrating colors and balanced lines on the surface of the canvas to formulate expressive and abstract content in a modern style.
Artist Wafika Sultan sums up her experience, her message and her philosophy in art at the conclusion of her statement to QNA that she believes in the role of fine art as a message in interacting with society, being excited by social and political events, and spreading optimism and beauty. She says that art for her represents an honest measure of expressing her innermost and her visions, and that painting is the summary of her experiences in life, her love for beauty and her search for it, as well as her passion for artistic expression through brush and colors, and that love makes history and is the strongest motive for the creator and artist.
Worldwide Admiration
The experience of the young fine artist Bouthayna Al Muftah was warmly received and appreciated, as her prestigious work, the official poster for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, has won worldwide admiration. Her idea was inspired by the cultural heritage and was able to creatively express the passion of the Qatari public for football, by employing the symbolism of the ‘gutra’ and ‘egal’ (traditional headwear), and reflecting the cheers of the fans and their victorious celebrations. The poster was launched at a special ceremony at Hamad International Airport last June, and was shown at the Design Museum in the British capital, London, last July.
Al Muftah drew the attention and interest of the art scene in Qatar and the world through experiences, including, a sculpture of Kan Ya Ma Kaan (Once Upon a Time) in Qatar National Museum, which was inspired by traditional Qatari jewelry. Bouthayna Al Muftah’s “Echoes” project at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art.
Artist Bouthayna Al Muftah, who graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University College of Design in Qatar, known for her inspiration for heritage and her openness to modernity in style and form. She explained in an exclusive statement to Qatar News Agency (QNA) that the past of parents and grandparents who live in Qatar has always been a source of inspiration for her artwork, and that cultural heritage and folklore is the main source of this inspiration. Therefore, in all her works, she tries to merge the past with the present in an inspiring artistic image, so that the past is still remembered by the rapidly changing present. Therefore, all her works complement each other, and they are all linked to the collective memory of the community.
About the role of art in keeping pace with social and cultural transformations locally and humanly, artist Bouthayna Al Muftah believes that art is always linked in some way to social, cultural and political transformations as well, which is reflected in the artworks, models and exhibits that are executed by the artists, who, by their nature, are affected by these changes taking place around them and thus represent a source of inspiration and stimulus for them to present new and different works of art in line with their surroundings.
The fine artist Bouthayna Al Muftah concluded her statement to QNA by confirming her ambitions to continue presenting works of art that serve the ideas she believes in, and her quest to spread this thought in her surroundings and to be a source of inspiration for other artists.
Inspiring Model
For her part, the fine artist, Mariam Al Mulla presents an inspiring model in conquering physical disability through art. She exercises creativity from her wheelchair and embarks on an artistic adventure and an iconic aesthetic.Moroccan writer Mohamed El Bandouri said that in her structural achievement, she relies on the idea of people and their employment, as a matter of fact, and then they are transformed into space in accordance with formative techniques.
Mariam Al Mulla get inspired by the living heritage of the Qatari society in its conditions of familiarity, tolerance, generosity, resilience and beautiful values, and chooses an artistic framework and creative form belonging to contemporary art, including Cubism. She ensures that all her painting and exhibitions has to be humanitarian expressing good, right and beauty. She chose “togetherness” as a title of her painting, the winner of the Katara Fine Art Competition in 2020 to reflect the cohesion of the people of Qatar, and her participation in the Doha International Book Fair 2020. She presented an inspiring example of the challenge of disability through creativity.
In an exclusive statement to Qatar News Agency (QNA), artist Mariam Al Mulla explained that Qatari heritage with its elements associated with crafts, occupations, costumes and games is a permanent spring of artistic inspiration.
Al Mulla indicates that she celebrates Qatari and Gulf women by reversing their symbolism as a mother of the family, highlighting their strengths, will and their role in preserving the family’s entity and cohesion, taking care of their husband and children while at the same time taking care of their appearance, elegance, beauty and home elegance.
She added that she is also interested in reversing Qatari values in magnanimity and generosity by employing symbols indicative of these values such as Dallah (coffee pot) and coffee cups, and highlighting familiarity milestones represented in work involving two women exchanging conversation, in addition to a painting featuring a wife giving her husband coffee and exchanging friendliness and respect, and a scene of an older man kissing his wife’s head. Scenes of this kind reflect familiarity and document art for the most beautiful and noble feelings.
As for the artistic and expressive form she uses, Al Mulla said she choses the Cubism and she was able to make it meaningful in relation to the values of human and Qatari society, noting that many visitors to her exhibitions admire this combination of heritage values and contemporary art form in her works. She considers that this represents an appropriate input and method for expressing the humanity and universality of these values, as underscored by the global dimension of art.
Artist Mariam Al Mulla concluded by expressing her pleasure at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education choosing her works along with other creative works within the curriculum in Qatar for the elementary, preparatory and secondary stages, which demonstrates her imprint on the service of her country and society. (QNA)