FROM LEFT: Johnatan Machado, Sarah Jayyousi, Amna Al Muftah and Hemanth Madupu.
Artists in Residence at the Fire Station Doha showcased their artworks recently through ‘Open Studios’ ranging from music, traditional weaves, painting and sculpture covering themes on environment, culture and self-expression.
Seventeen artists are participating this year’s edition. This is an annual nine-month residency programme from September to June, where artists are given studio space in one of the five floors of the Fire Station building.
Included for the sixth edition of the Artists in Residence programme or AIR 6 are Shaikha Al Khulaifi, Noor Al Kuwari, Wadha Al Mesalam, Amna Al Muftah), Ali Al Naama, Farah Al Sidiky, Maha Al Sulaiti, Abdulrahman Al Thani (all from Qatar) Hemanth Madupu (India), Noof Al Theyab (Qatar), Fatima Al Yousef (Qatar), Sarah Jayyousi (Palestine), Hazim Mohamed (Sudan), Johnatan Machado (Venezuela), Abir Zakzok (Syria), and Voyyyd (Qatar).
Also participating are Ruwad Artists Wafika Sultan Al Essa (Qatar) and Hassan Al Mulla (Qatar).
The Peninsula spoke to some of these artists where they talked about their arts.
Hemanth Madupu explained that his current project is about Khaliji music interactive art. Madupu, together with this partner Abdulrahman Al Thani, generated waves through the music rhythm and upon scanning their artwork through a mobile app, it will play a Khaliji music. Both are interdisciplinary artists and musicians.
Fatima Al Yousef's artworks feature a creature as the subject. “I use art as an expressive form, every creature you see is based on a person I know or an emotion, everything has a meaning to me even the shapes.”
Each of her art piece has a code that also has meaning which she doesn’t want to reveal. She experiments in different mediums such as cardboard, embroidery, animation, among others.
Johnatan Machado from Venezuela said: “My idea of work talks about traditional materials which are transformed into contemporary art pieces.” Machado has been an artist for 20 years but working on the traditional Qatari weaves and tapestries started six years ago.
Sheikha Al Khulaifi, a multidisciplinary artist has various art forms on media illustration, portraiture, creative writing (poetry), and now she’s making her own paper.
She revealed that a lot of her artworks speak on being autistic, being one herself, and how it “feels on the outside looking in, I am half American and half Qatari, and so I’ve always been in between places.”
Amna Al Muftah’s artworks focus on nature. “I collect a lot of native plants around me, usually from the desert; I dry them, make compositions and paint them. I want to bring awareness on the pollution I see around, because the plants I collect, most of them has trash, and people don’t realise because they don’t see it. Her latest painting is called “Plant Landfill” where plants are filled with trash on a 121 x 182 canvass.
Sarah Jayyousi’s art talks about abstract geometric exploration where she draw inspiration from architecture and paint it on canvas by “flattening the images.”
“My art is my voice because I am very reserved and quiet, and my work is very bright and it shows people my confidence. I also want them to appreciate their surroundings, and my art speaks about it,” Jayyousi explained. The Open Studios takes place twice a year at the Fire Station which is an excellent opportunity to meet artists in residence, curator, and view their artworks and current projects.
