Analysis Essay on Art and Artists

Artist Background

Lateefa bint Maktoum is the founder and director of Tashkeel, a public studio providing specialist facilities for artists and designers living and working in the UAE. She has always admired art despite taking GCSE. In most of her artwork, the veiled woman is a dominant feature that commemorates the status of women in the Arab society- the veiled woman (Lateefa bint, 2017). Being a Muslim herself and availed woman at that, she is comfortable featuring a veiled woman in her artworks because she can identify with the veiled women, their experiences and the general perception about the veils and the role of women in Arabic societies. The veil, therefore, is an important theme in her artworks.

The Last Look:

The artwork titled "the last look" is a picture of a woman wearing blue abaya dress and blue scarf standing in swampy place between a distant town in the background and a bleak future. The woman seems to be looking backward into a distance town while walking towards the east without anything in view. The blue cladding may represent hope as it departs from the traditional black scarf and abaya women in most Arabic societies. The balance in the picture is unique as the foreground is heavy with many objects and the background is hazy with few objects (Medium, 2017).

Interpretation

The woman is an Emirati woman in the traditional Muslim dress standing in a swampy place. The picture represents a Muslim woman with a will to embrace the unknown future while holding on a suitcase with her old tradition. The woman seems to regret having left home but has hope for the future she does not understand. The camera is taken at the normal eye view with images more clear in the foreground that in the background. The blurred images at that back especial the houses represent a waning hope. The traditional dress she is wearing represent then old tradition, and the suitcase is weighing her down represents the traditions that weight the Muslim or Emirati women down instead of allowing them to embrace the future which is still not clear for the Emirati women (Perry, 2002).

Sustained Identity:

In her work about parenthood and family, Lateefa bint Maktoum pictured herself holding a lengthy white textile tied in the form of a circle surrounding her son. The angle of the camera is a high angle. The shot is taken from above, and she is seen sitting down on the floor while the baby is lying on the floor.

Interpretations

The circle is shaped in the form of love as it symbolizes one, the love of the mother to the child. The child is looking at the mother depicting hope and trusts, and the fact that the woman is holding to the cloth symbolizes the both between the two. The child symbolizes new hope, a new beginning for everyone in the context including her art studio, new artists in the UAE and family (Perry, 2002).

Clarity

The artwork comprises of an Arab woman dressed in a green decorated abaya barefoot and dancing on the waters of an artificial stream. The stream seems to flow gently even on the shortfalls along with it. Around the creek are lush vegetation of various types and some have flowered. At the background are tall trees that seem to impose a shadow.

Interpretation

Clarity represents a point life where there is peace as demonstrated in the calm waters. There is also prosperity and flourishing as evidenced in by the green vegetation and flowers. A sense of protection is present through the trees that surround the area.

Family

The exhibit depicts a man and woman holding a child viewing the desert extent next to the ocean waters. The couple is wearing their traditional attire and is at the door of their house admiring the view. Inside the house is a vase full of white petal flowers.

Interpretation

The art represents the intense love of a family. The man holds the woman as a sign of belonging and intimacy. The woman holds the child in one arm showing her love to the child and her willingness to raise the child. On the other hand, the woman leans on the man as a sign of trust and dependence. The white flowers in the room depict the peace inside the home.

Artist Background

Owais Husain was born in 1967 in Mumbai, India. He graduated in Fine Arts degree from Sir J.J School of Art in 1990 and currently works and resides in Dubai and Mumbai. Husain has rigorously studied in classical drawing and painting and learned lithography and printmaking at the Kanoria Centre for Arts. As an apprentice to influential artists such as Jagdish Swaminathan in Bhopal, and Robert Blackburn at the Printmaking Workshop in New York, he developed a mixed-media practice evident in his paintings. Husain is an artist who is a sort of cartographer, storyteller framing the present times for the next generation. Owais uses various mediums in his work to give it a visual texture referencing his roots in the traditional Indian figurative style and embody a constant pursuit of evolving and contemporizing that iconography.

Heart of Silence

The "Heart of Silence" is a set illuminate paper shaped as tipped houses mounted on a stand onto which drawing are make resembling land terrain and writing. It was launched at Abu Dhabi Art week in 2015 and marked Husain's re-emergence into the public eye.

Interpretation

Husain demonstrates how armed violence or a natural calamity can change the native ways of life by their sheer force turning people's lives for the worst by use of paper houses turned upside down. The steel basin filled with water at the bottom showing a reflection of the house in their original state suggests that it was a mirror or flash back to how life used to be before the change and a longing for that life as remembered. The reflection makes the houses to appear to be many supporting the view that the disaster affected many people and that no one is where they used to be either culturally, economically and linguistically hence all are immigrants

My Body, A Fleet of Ships

The artwork "My Body, A Fleet of Ships" first exhibited in 2014 it consists of a series of acrylic painting and photographs produced on acrylic panels, terracotta, and lights. It is a portrait of a woman in shadow visualized to appear as if waking inside water. Another is a boy locking in oblivion and despair, a man looking at his reflection on water and two ladies dressed in black with their heads side by side.

Interpretation

The artwork has various scenarios in which can be used to describe the power the body has. In the instance of a lady walking in water can mean the ability of a person to overcome the challenges occurring in their lives. Also from nothing a person can be someone of stature respected and of value. The man looking at his blurred image can illustrate how a situation can change for the better until it becomes difficult to recognize one's original status.

3 Worlds, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai

The "3 Worlds" are a setoff drawings depicting human beings with dialog illustration that are blank but seem to be in communication with one another and other beings such as animals.

Interpretation

The art illustrates that every human being is a storyteller of some sort telling stories through work, children, and interaction with one another. In this way, we further the human race whether willingly or not. These conversations made are what connects us to each other and is intricate in shaping how we live life.

Sympathy vs. Empathy, 2014

It is an acrylic painting on a canvas describing a boy wearing a tiger's mask with no shoes, short trousers and no shirt face to face with an actual tiger almost a meter in front of him. The boy is clutching his face as the big cat looks at him.

Interpretation

The canvas shows the depiction of a boy from a poor background from his dress code and lack of shoes who encounters a tiger which is bigger, stronger and more fearsome than he is and pretends to be like a tiger though masking himself. The tiger by now should have attacked the boy, but instead, it stares straight at him showing no sign of aggression showing sympathy to the kid.

Artist Background

Nasir Nasrallah was born in 1984. He is an undergraduate with a degree in Telecommunication Engineering from Khalifa University in Sharjah. While doing his degree, Nasir took a course the Emirates Fine Arts Society. He has participated in numerous exhibitions both inside and outside the United Arab Emirates and currently holds a position of Vice President of the Emirates Fine Art Society and is an Ambassador for The UAE Board on Books for Young People. His work is very personal in response to the people, places, and environments he comes across. It enables communication of his inner thoughts, feelings, and desires.

Black White and Stories

These are a group of four printed photos detailed by hand paintings and playful drawings.

It is a picture of the palm tree that graces the coastal regions which their edges highlighted. There is a drawn wall separating the palms from the white vehicle and human figures on opposite side on in the presence of the sun and the other a moon.

Interpretation

The presence of the palms and birds flying in the background represents the divide between nature and modernity, and the contrast is more defined by the man and woman on opposite sides wearing differently colored clothes and in the different time as the man is in daylight and the woman in the moonlight. The wall drawings symbolize how women and men are perceived.

It is a depiction of a home with a small compound that is walled and gated that is next to the palm trees. The walls have drawings of windows that open out to the ocean, cabinets and a wall picture.

Interpretation

The pictures try to give the image a more lively color and friendly appeal as opposed to its pale white and monochromatic. The moon in the background is drawn out of place as the picture setting is during the day. The moon is symbolic to the Muslim religion, and its placement at the top of the homes shows how the home upholds their beliefs.

The exhibit comprises a monochromatic background of palm trees, a wall, and lines of bulbs that outline various colors.

Interpretation

The art shows how the small thing with color can make a scene lively. Although lonely when one, if organized and randomized they bring beauty in the image.

It is an image of a compound graced with trees at the background. Inside the compound are drawings of steps leading to a water body with fish and a boat. There is some color outlining of vegetation and the gate decorations.

Interpretation

The art shows how the home is neighboring to the sea and is part of the general friendly environment. The fish and the boat represent the primary activity being carried out in the ocean which can be fishing. One boat and many fishes depict abundance.