Resident artists Fatima Mohammed at the Open Studio event held at Fire Station yesterday. Pic: Baher Amin / The Peninsula
DOHA: Eighteen artists under “Fire Station:Artist in Residence” programme’s third cycle impressed art enthusiasts with their fresh concepts executed in diverse media at yesterday’s Open Studio Night which provided opportunity for the public to see the artists’ works in progress.
A large number of people visited the Fire Station to meet the resident artists and see some exciting projects taking shape such as Qatari artist Ahmed Nooh Ahmed’s installation comprising over 200 burnt books, through which he underlines the crucial role book plays in life and how people take them for granted.
“In the past, people would burn books for a reason; maybe they differ in opinion with the author that they don’t want people to read his ideas. But now, people burn books for no reason or just keep them in the library and no one reads them,” explained Ahmed.
The books in Ahmed’s installation were thrown away by their owners, so “they already burned these books before I did.”
Ahmed, who had taken formal art courses at Visual Art Centre, gets his inspiration from his dreams and his current project was two years in the making.
On his residency at the Fire Station, he said “It energizes me and I found myself here. Every week we meet with other artists in one studio to talk about art and it’s a good thing to share ideas.”
Fatima Mohammed, a young Qatari artist, was of the same view saying “It’s a good programme where you can meet other artists and learn from each other because everyone has a different medium.”
For her residency, Fatima is creating a series of paintings depicting a fusion of Qatari and American culture by creating a fictional character combining American eagle and Qatari batoola. “I’ve fused two different cultures together and showed how they are changing and becoming modernized through time,” she the VCUQatar alumna.
Another Qatari artist Yousif Fawzi Bahzad explores land and its relationship with the people through his monochrome paintings which depict fantastical images and mythical creatures.
“I’m interested with the land as an entity and its relationship with people, how it shapes them and I’d like to explore that through my art. I’m also interested in hybridity of traditions and new ways of thinking,” he said.
On the residency programme, he said: “This is very important for Qatar. It’s one way of getting people excited about art and establishing local and regional artists. It’s an interesting space,” he said.
Since Fire Station opened its doors, more than 55 artists have benefited from the residency programme which has proven to be enormously popular, with several hundred applications submitted over the course of the three years.
Khalifa Al Obaidly, Director of the Fire Station: Artist in Residence said: “The Fire Station not only provides an effective launchpad to develop the careers of many of the Qatar’s most talented artists, but it has developed into a colourful, spirited and dynamic arts centre for the public. Our open studio events are an incredibly important part of that and provide the perfect introduction to the various steps that Qatar Museums is taking to nurture and develop the country’s young creatives.”
