Saudi Arabian lens-based artist Manal Al-Dowayan explores the state of solitude within shared spaces and the loss and reinforcement of identity within this state of isolation. The second artist-in-residence at Cuadro Fine Art Gallery, Al-Dowayan joined The Arts Residency program in May 2010 and will remain in residence until the end of November 2010. We Had No Shared Dreams is the culmination of this residency.

In her latest series of work she explores how local demographic changes and global activities are experienced on a personal level.  Although ‘local’ and ’global’ can be worlds apart for some, in reality, they form a single conversation with multiple translations. On a personal level she explores the impact of the veil on women, a cloth that can erase an identity of the person wearing it, but can place a woman comfortably among a homogenous community of like-minded individuals that reinforce their identity with the veil. The solitude felt from behind the veil is ignored at the expense of the empowerment of a group.

Al-Dowayan also explores the unique rapid demographic change that her country has experienced in the past decade: On average, Saudi Arabian cities have witnessed a 30 per cent rise in their population. This has, obviously, had an impact on its individuals and communities, as many struggle to preserve their identity through self imposed isolation. Simultaneously, Al-Dowayan shifts from the local to the global – exploring our sense of belonging in a world that has become increasingly Islamophobic, racist, and fanatical; here too, we see many in self-imposed seclusion. In her in-depth depiction of solitude and the search for identity, Al-Dowayan incorporates major elements that have become prevalent tools of survival; the satellite dish is one of those tools.

In this body of work, Al-Dowayan continues the dialogue that she started with Landscapes of the Mind, a stunning collection developed in 2009, in which she explored the notion of a landscape in conflict with itself and the impact that space can have on the development of identity at the individual level. We Had No Shared Dreams builds on this with a graphic dialogue with defined characters: the city and its inhabitant.

Following the success of Landscapes of the Mind and previous series such as I Am and The Choice, Al-Dowayan decided to make art her full time vocation, a career choice Cuadro is proud to support. The Arts Residency at Cuadro will provide Al-Dowayan with the necessary skills to enable her to further develop her artistic practice. Al-Dowayan follows Alex De Fluvia’s residency, which culminated with De Fluvia’s highly successful exhibition Writing in the Sand, which opened at Cuadro Fine Art Gallery in March 2010 and coincided with Art Dubai.

Sultan Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of ’Your Friends and Neighbors’, a solo show by New York-based Saudi artist, Jowhara Al Saud.

” As photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possession of space in which they are insecure.” – Susan Sontag

The images created by Jowhara Al Saud speak of the careful nature and character embedded in Middle Eastern society, especially in the Gulf Corporation Council, where public projection is a precarious issue. Her manner of addressing censorship reveals how arbitrary these regulations (supposedly standard) are, and consequently the psychological repercussions this has on people on a more social level.

The body of work being exhibited in Sultan Gallery began as an exploration of censorship in Saudi Arabia. For Jowhara Al Saud it was about understanding the effects of censorship on visual communication and social cohesion (or lack thereof). But it wasn’t long before this exploration of censorship evolved into a study of empirical human interaction, thus turning her work into a “cataloguing” of how telling and familiar small gestures and fleeting moments can be. Sort of like the shy apologetic smile you exchange with a stranger when you accidentally bump into one another on the street, or that awkward moment when two people reach for the same thing at the same time and touch without meaning to. It is precisely this arbitrariness that is played up in her artwork, which appropriates the language of occultation by applying it to her own personal photographs in pseudo-self-censorship:

‘I began making line drawings, omitting faces and skin. Keeping only the essentials preserved the anonymity of my subjects. This allowed me to simultaneously circumvent, and comment on, some of the cultural taboos associated with photography. Namely the stigma attached to bringing the ‘personal portrait’, commonly reserved for the private domestic space, into a public sphere.”

How much can you tell with so little? This question has long been the polemical issue of representation, and thus Sultan Gallery invites you to explore revelation vis-à-vis representation through the work of Jowhara Al Saud on Tuesday, October 19^th 2010 from 7 to 9 pm.

Teddy is an alter ego. He acted as an experiment to help a local girl settle back into society after being away for 6 years. He has been photographed for 365 days around Kuwait and the Middle East and had become a successful buffer zone between his owner and society. The photographs were displayed on a blog that quickly became one of the most popular blogs in Kuwait. The photographs highlight social, political and religious issues in images and short captions that triggered interaction from readers around the world.

As the year went by, photographs turned into films and his owner experimented with different mediums to best illustrate her views. She presented at Pecha Kucha Kuwait and Dubai through the bear, keeping her profile anonymous. The social experiment turned into an interactive project by extending the virtual bridge between the bear and his fans. The blog promoted different charity causes and has been raising money through sponsorship and merchandise all year.

The 365 days have come to an end and Teddy B is proud to present his photographs and book at the prestigious Sultan Gallery. All proceeds of the exhibition will be donated to charities for children in Kuwait. Teddy B. will also be auctioned and sold to the highest bidder.

About the Blogger/Photographer

Aseel AlYaqoub was born and raised in Kuwait. She graduated from Chelsea College of Art and Design majoring in Interior and Spatial Design (2009). Prior to that she studied architecture for four years at the Architectural Association School of Architecture. She discovered the dark room during her first year in London and has developed a love of photography ever since.

The ‘flying’ Iraqi-Canadian artist Mahmud Obaidi’s new exhibition offers viable alternatives to a post-globalized art world where local singularities often contribute to a still legitimized Western centre.

The show reunites the “Compact Home” (2003) and “Disposable Home” projects (2004) and more recent work: “How Not to Look Like a Terrorist” (which will be shown at LTMH Gallery in New York this month), and the “Fair Skies®” project that has had critical and public acclaim in Art Dubai 2010. On this rare opportunity in Kuwait at the Sultan Gallery , the viewer will get the chance to judge how one artist can coincide contemporary conceptual work with aesthetic and formal art making.

Obaidi’s work addresses themes of ‘flight’ linking through his art the different meanings of the term; from that of the perpetual flight of a hyphenated Middle-Eastern artist with no place to call his own, to that of ‘flying while Arab’ and the racial profiling of a man boarding a KLM flight (aka the “Flying Dutchman”). Now that’s irony for you, not to mention word play, a bit of art on the side.

The world’s first Kuwaiti comic book, by Fatima Al Qadiri and Khalid al Gharaballi, titled Mahma Kan Althaman (“Whatever the Price”) - the hermaphroditic lovechild of Moogambo, as well as The Real Housewives of Atlanta, and a 1970s Italian fotonovela, commissioned by Bidoun Magazine, will be on view at Sultan Gallery. A series of prints from the book will be on display alongside a selection of local designer Kleenex boxes and cutting-edge, Emirati perfumes.

Please join us for this exhibit!

Exhibition Dates & Timing: April 27-29, 2010
Opening Hours: April 27th, 2010 7pm – 9pm
April 28th, 2010 11am – 2pm, 7pm – 9pm
April 29th, 2010 11am – 2pm
RSVP by visiting our Facebook event page.  Click here.