My Experience with Fine Arts and the Influence of Poetry and Folk Arts on It

Translation

1) How was your upbringing, and what is its impact on your art?

My awareness awakened in the house where I was born in Muharraq, surrounded by folk decorations. I would look at the room's ceiling, and my eyes would be drawn to the carved wood (al-manqur), the dangal, and the bamboo decorated with red, yellow, and green colors.

Gypsum decorations would greet me on the walls and openings, and I delighted in running my fingers over the golden nails in the large wooden chest that sat in the corner of the room. Above it was a basket with its distinctive shape, beautified by interwoven strips of colored palm fronds - crimson, green, and red. There was the large bed or the decorated "kalla," and on a nail in the wall hung a bright garment with its vivid colors and the black "milfa'a" decorated with "naqda" (silver threads)." I would often contemplate the decorations on the wooden door of the room.

My father's profession was tailoring bishts and abayas, and in our house, there was a large room where many bisht tailors worked, who came from Al-Ahsa. The decorations created by the needles inspired by the golden threads (Zari) on the bishts caught my attention, especially when the bisht tailoring was completed and the zari was hammered on a piece of thick wood to be polished, revealing the beauty of its decoration.

Everything around me was rich with folk decorations. Perhaps living with them throughout my childhood made them become deeply rooted in my memory.

The neighborhood I lived in was mostly inhabited by sea captains (nawakhida), pearl merchants (tawawish), and pearl divers whose homes I would enter. In fact, my mother was always surrounded by their women. I would hear many stories of the men who went pearl diving and lived their sorrows and joys, sharing with the children their folk games.

Translation

That reservoir of memories had a great impact on me when I began to think about expressing artistic subjects in which I highlight the suffering of the people of my country.

My artistic beginning since childhood was a passion for drawing with charcoal on walls, then in elementary and secondary school with new materials - pencils, watercolors, and oils. After that, I entered the teaching profession and began teaching drawing, and I formed [a group] with colleagues who shared the same hobby... and I began participating in drawing excursions in nature, in villages and markets...

We had nothing but the desire to express ourselves in drawing; we didn't possess artistic culture, but we began to receive some artistic education through our reading of some art books available at the British Cultural Council, and our discussions began. When drawing from nature, expressions of color, composition, shadow, light, and dimensions would resonate in them... and our paintings began to show signs of that knowledge about humanity and its suffering...

The memories of the pearl diving returned to me... the subject was broad and complex, wrapped in haziness and the crowding of memories. At that time the poetry collection "Light from Within" by the Kuwaiti poet Mohammed Al-Fayez was published... and I read it and felt that it illuminated the path for me - the images contained in the sailor's memoirs in the same collection were images harmonious with the ideas I wanted to express... and I began working.

During that period, one of my paintings was chosen along with 6 other paintings by Bahraini artists to participate in the Arab Art Notebooks exhibition which included an elite selection of paintings from several Arab countries. When it was exhibited in Bahrain, the paintings from Iraq, Egypt, and Lebanon were a surprise to us as they introduced us to new and rich methods of expression.

Translation

The first image that captivated me and I began thinking about embodying was the first memoir: "He gripped the oyster opener... at dawn, trembling, for the necklace to be completed..."

I put my concepts for it in several sketches that took me days until I began painting it in oil on canvas. The idea had settled...

The diver's body is tired and his chest bones have protruded. He holds the oyster opener in his hand while shivering from the cold, which I used a dark green color in his body to express. His eyes are wide and distant, traveling far to where his wife appears - her face visible in the painting's sky in a faint form. The large door of the house appears behind the diver with all that it means of longing and yearning, Folk decorations distributed in different parts of the painting and integrated into the composition, and a large sail embracing the diver and the door.

As for the second painting, I painted the diver's wife: "And his wife remains there without bracelet... and without necklace in her clay house, dreaming and alone..."

I painted the diver's wife filling the painting's space - sad and pensive, placing her hand on her cheek and scratching the earth with her other hand. Night surrounds her with its darkness and its phantoms. Her features indicate waiting and anticipation, and beside her is a lantern (fanar) with pale light...

Translation

In a third memoir, the poet says through the diver's voice:

"And I screamed, and shuddered, and all eyes flashed like candles in mine vaults like the wounded crawling ones... a small moon... in its silver nest I grasped it and shouted to the companions: blessed be you...

And the captain shuddered like one who fears it would melt from the fire of his eyes..."

In this painting I depicted the diver with his chest bones protruding, holding [the pearl] with both hands, his fingers curved around it to protect it. A group of sailors have gathered around him, their naked, thin bodies curved, their eyes flashing, their attention focused on the pearl...

At the stern of the boat appears the movement of the captain with his stocky body as he is about to stand up, his eyes flashing, holding a red cloth in his hand to place the pearl in it - the pearl he fears for from the eyes of his sailors...

In the fourth painting, I painted the diver's wedding:

"I will forge my path among you in my new white garment and my black abaya where in my hand... the thread of my long prayer beads dances... and friends on the shores with the sail await the coming of your sad knight..."

Translation

I painted the diver in his garment and black abaya, his hand dancing with the thread of his prayer beads, and beside him his bride with her complete folk adornments - they fill the decorated door of the house. Next to them is the bedroom door with mirrors visible on the walls, and the wooden chest with golden nails, and the traditional furniture (al-maris and al-manjar). Beside the room door stand three women beating drums, and on the roof of the room a rooster crows... And on the other side, three sailors with their naked bodies stand before the diving ship, waiting for the groom to set off for the diving grounds. In the painting's sky, scattered folk decorations appear, mixed with the dark color of the sky.

The result from Mohammed Al-Fayez's poetry collection was ten large paintings that I exhibited at the Bahrain Artists' Family exhibition in Kuwait in 1969.

Pearl diving still echoes in my soul, and memories and folk decorations still appear in all my works. Poetry still reveals to me images from which I extract paintings that express the suffering of humanity in my country.

The second poet who stirred in me the desire to express his meanings was Ali Abdullah Khalifa in his collection "Thirst of the Palm Trees." My expressions of his images appeared in drawings in the collection's first edition, and then I painted some of them in oil and exhibited them at the Bahrain Artists' Family exhibition at the Eagles Club in 1970.

Translation

Among those paintings was one that represented the folk song (موال) "Adhāri": "Adhāri, who will water that distant palm tree for me..."

I painted it as a Bahraini girl carrying a water jug above her head with her hand to water the distant plant that, when water doesn't reach it from a source to water it, withers. Beneath it sits a sad person who has hidden his head between his arms, and beside him is a locked door.

About another موال: "Land of loyalty and faithfulness, my brother, tend to it..."

I depicted a Bahraini man who had wrapped his arms around a woman wearing the bukhnuq and traditional folk dress, and beside her, a small house, a palm tree, and a ship, with writings repeating the same موال. On the arms of the Bahraini man, the موال was written.

2) What are the Western and global influences that affected you?

In the beginning, there were no influences except what I took from my teachers in school, such as Professor Kareem Al-Areed, who taught us drawing in elementary school, where I was amazed by his works, especially the Mona Lisa painting that I used to see in the hall of Al-Gharbiya Elementary School. Then, when we moved..

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Translation

...to secondary school. I was drawn to the paintings of the Egyptian professor Abd Al-Fattah with his bright colors. When we graduated from secondary school and I began working in teaching, I was impressed by the theater backdrop paintings that Professor Aziz Zubari used to create - he taught with me at Salmaniya Elementary School. At that time I had joined the Bahrain Artists' Family and began going out with Kareem Al-Areed, Kareem Al-Busta, and Rashid Swar to paint from nature in villages, markets, popular neighborhoods, and Manama port. That period was what enabled us to understand the fundamentals of drawing in terms of perspective, shadow, light, and composition.

In that period also, some cultural magazines that were interested in fine arts began reaching Bahrain, such as Al-Majalla magazine, Contemporary Thought, and The Writer. We would read them and discuss their topics during our wanderings, which developed our cultural sense in fine arts.

I traveled to Cairo... and there, in the spirit of revolution and work, I was drawn to the works of a young artist, the artist Mustafa Al-Razaz. I got to know him and bonds of friendship formed between us where we were inseparable. I learned about his interest in folk arts, which was clear in his works. He had a firm belief that the artist's culture is the foundation of his work. His father was the director of the Egyptian Library, so he was constantly reading references, especially those concerned with folk arts. He was a student at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts and one of his professors was the historian Saad Al-Khadem, who was a historian of folk arts. We would have long sessions with him from which we benefited greatly from his experience and conversation.

My influence by the artist Mustafa Al-Razaz was a cultural influence, where my connection with him encouraged me in research and reading, and made me feel that my interest in folk arts...

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Translation

...was going in the right direction.

As for the global influences, Van Gogh with his bold brushstrokes and Rembrandt with his light and shadow effects had a clear influence on our paintings in that period. In modern contemporary art, Picasso, who gave unlimited artistic output in all materials, influenced us in terms of exploiting different materials in expression.

3) What is your opinion on the current fine arts movement in Bahrain?

In my opinion, the fine arts movement in Bahrain currently, despite the many exhibitions that are held, the good artists who are concerned with presenting good, well-studied work are few. This can be observed in the huge quantity of works that represent naive environmental scenes and the rare few works that present a studied perspective.

The problem of the Bahraini artist primarily is the lack of clarity in his artistic vision and the lack of concern for personal education and studied exploration, and consequently conscious artistic production.

Translation

4) What is the role of artistic critique and its impact on the fine arts movement in Bahrain?

The reality is that we don't have objective criticism that shows the positive and negative aspects of artistic work based on studied foundations and conscious understanding of the artistic creation process...

The criticism we have is written by some journalists and writers who write what the artist repeats about his works without evaluation or discussion of what he says, especially if the artist has an acquaintance or friendship with the writer, so he becomes famous through him. Therefore, if we gathered what was written about artists and art exhibitions, we wouldn't find anything useful in it, and it cannot be considered a reference for the fine arts movement. All that can be concluded from those encounters is that our fine arts movement is an experience with unconscious influences that doesn't rely on continuous and consistent experience and skill in the artist's production and output, but rather the conclusion that the artist has simple drawing skills that he manipulates.

5) What is the motivation for using various materials? Such as the zinc material you work with?

The field of arts is unlimited for the artist and his choice of the material he works with... For me, I found in engraving on zinc a response to expressing my ideas, and I found in it unlimited possibilities that helped me highlight effects that cannot be extracted with another material. This is in addition to challenging the hard material and having confidence in controlling it...

Translation

In addition to that, zinc engraving requires from the artist intensive scientific study of the materials used, such as acid and its effect on metals, and varnish in its various forms, as well as conscious concentration during work.