THE SLEEPY CAMEL WAKES UP! Art and the artistry of coffee in Soapbox’s unique café By bazaar Staff
The Sleepy Camel Coffee Co. officially launched with a flurry of artists eager to share their ideas to celebrate the occasion. A design of a camel canvas was commissioned from UNIT, one of the incubated retailers in Soapbox, Promenade Mall, and sent out to ten local artists. On the official launch night all ten pieces were beautifully displayed with a plaque and on a specially designed stand, and without exception, every single camel had its own group of admirers. The artists who took part were of all ages, the youngest to submit a camel canvas was eighteen year old Manar Al Tammar who jumped at the chance to take part in this exhibition. Manar says she is, “Always striving for the opportunity to express [myself] through different forms of media.” Others took inspiration from iconic landmarks or infamous local areas like “Souq Al Manakh”. This is the case with the piece by Mishari AlNajjar whose camel looked just like the tiled wall of the landmark, notorious for the various dubious goings on that would take place there. Manakh roughly translates in this case as “sitting camel”, as the name of this souq came about because the tradesmen would come and sit their camels down in this area on their breaks. Hasan Ali took inspiration from a woman he knows called Latifah who’s story he finds fascinating and multi-layered like the piece he produced using the images of women from the ruba, to Russian iconography. There is a rainbow of color across the camel canvas, a cell phone nurtured like a baby, with an oil-pumping mechanical donkey at one end and the flight of butterflies at the other. Some artists painted on both sides of the camel canvas, as did artist Aisha Burhama who depicted sleepy camel coffee cups and the act of drinking coffee on the foundation of a particularly hirsute camel. This is the artist’s USP, “I am fascinated with drawing hair on everything!” An unassumingly cute depiction of the many different characters that we encounter every day in Kuwait was illustrated perfectly by Fatima Al Othman. There’s the thick-necked gym body guy (usually seen in summer!), the designer clad thick eyebrowed fashionista, the hipster sporting a man-bun and most are on their cell phones showing off to their friends, or most likely -followers. That’s some sharp social commentary done right there, but with affection. There is something about the camel canvases that took the artists back to subjects that they loved when
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