A SPECIAL exhibition highlighting the creative dialogues between Bahraini artists of many different generations and marking the 40th anniversary of the Bahrain Arts Society (BAS) will be open to the public until Tuesday.

The exhibition, titled ‘Ajyal’ which translates to generations in Arabic, opened last Tuesday at the Athar monument and pop-up art gallery in Manama.

“Bahrain was one of the first countries in the Gulf region where fine arts emerged, dating back to the early 20th century,” a BAS spokesperson explained.

“The Bahrain Arts Society, since its establishment in 1983, has had an active role in supporting Bahraini art and artists locally and abroad by hosting exhibitions, workshops and lectures for various Bahraini artists, as well as by promoting Bahraini artists in international exhibitions.”

More than 70 art pieces from 46 artists are on display at the exhibition which is being organised in co-operation with the Supreme Council for Women under the patronage of National Arts Council president and BAS honorary president Shaikh Rashid bin Khalifa Al Khalifa.

Creatives from multiple generations have showcased old and new pieces at the exhibition, experimenting with a wide range of mediums and materials.

Bahraini three-dimensional computer effects (3D CFX) digital artist Rawan AlHosani created a piece inspired by the cuttlefish, stalwarts of the seas around Bahrain.

The digital print on paper merges the ideas of clean-cut designs and chaos, based on the Japanese concept of ‘wabi-sabi’ – a world view centred on the acceptance of change and imperfection.

“In wabi-sabi, whenever you create something very clean and easy to structure, you need to add something random to ‘break’ it,” the young 26-year-old 3D CFX artist, who studied at the University of Texas at Dallas in the US, told the GDN.

“This piece is basically a breakdown of the randomness and structure between geometric shapes and natural chaos.”

Ms AlHosani has also worked on other 3D projects including the 2020 computer-animated comedy Scoob! and the 2019 adventure comedy UglyDolls.

Meanwhile, BAS board member Noor Al Sairafi drew inspiration from the world around her to create two stunning sister circular art pieces, inspired by the eye spots on butterfly wings.

Many species of butterflies and moths have distinct markings on their wings, which appear to look like eyes and are called ‘eye spots’ – usually circular, made up of concentric rings of contrasting colours.

Scientists have two main theories as to why these spots have become evolutionarily part of these species – the large eye spots can make the butterfly appear to be part of a much larger animal and in the event of attack, the eye spots distract the predator away from the body of the insect.

“Eye spots are absolutely beautiful to us, but for the butterfly, they are a defence mechanism, and when I learned about this, I wanted to create a piece inspired by it, though of course art can be interpreted differently by every person,” Ms Al Sairafi, 42, added.

Ms Al Sairafi recently exhibited her work in Saudi Arabia as well, and draws inspiration from her travels and nature for her pieces.

Drawing inspiration from a walk down his memory lane, sculptor Mahdi Al Bannai designed and sculpted two bronze sculptures – a girl playing with a hula-hoop, called Al Tooq, and a mother carrying a tray of food to her neighbours, titled Om Alkhair.

“Both these pieces are intended to immortalise traditions that have been lost as our society has changed,” the 60-year-old explained.

“These days, children play with their video games but back then, we would invent our own games with whatever we could find – which is what inspired Al Tooq (translated to hula-hoop in Arabic).

“Om AlKhair (translated to mother of goodness in Arabic) is an homage to a bygone era when women would prepare extra food during Ramadan to be shared with neighbours at iftar time.”

The exhibition, also featuring artworks by the likes of Abdulla Al Muharraqi, Abbas Al Mosawi and Abbas Yusuf, is open from 6pm to 9pm.

More details can be found by following @bahrainartssociety on Instagram.

naman@gdnmedia.bh

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