Women Museum Artistic Booklet

“Women from my life”

Artists: Sheikha Lateefa bint Maktoum•Sheikha Al Mazrou•Maitha Demithan•Lateefa Saeed•Khawla Al Marri•Alia Lootah•Hind Mazina ® 2013 Womens Museum Design: Gilda Castro Rios • Photography : Ali Al Sharif

The first art exhibition at the Women’s Museum, exhibiting artworks of female emerging Emirati artists.

By Dr.Rafia Al Ghubash 2012

Exhibition Hours: Daily from Saturday toThrustday Bait Al Banat Gallery 1, Gold souk, Dubai

“Women from my life”

An Exhibition by

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. Lateefa graduated from Zayed University, with a Bachelors Degree in Visual Arts. She has been an exhibiting artist since 2004, beginning by creating public art works in addition to creating work for auction in aid of charitable organizations, such as Médecins Sans Frontières, Madrasati Palestine, Art for Sight auction - Noor Dubai.

Her first gallery show was Perceptions at the Third Line gallery in 2006 in Dubai.

The Last look is an image that speaks about change. It’s a personal reflection on the development that is happening in the UAE. The photograph is taken on a sea shell in the area previously known as Alhasah meaning “the rock” now known as the Jebel Ali area. A figure walks on the rocks in the foreground, behind her is the horizon line revealing a faint line of sand that looks like it is emerging out of the sea, it is the palm island Jebel Ali. When we look closer we see construction starting to take place on the island. The figure carries a suitcase with her representing the fact that the culture is within the people and no matter what change is happening it is up to the people to keep it alive.

Sheikha Al Mazrou is an Emirati artist, graduated from College of Fine

Arts and Designwith a Bachelor degree in Fine Arts. Her work investigates the use of mass-produced objects as appropriated ready-mades for the creation of artworks that deal with colour, form and interaction.

The conceptual development and the assemblage method of these artworks pose diverse questions on formal aspects such as material, form, repetition and geometric structure. It is a process that, inevitably, sets off an unquestionable challenge to the ideologies of industrial mass production through its handmade qualities.

Lateefa Saeed, born in 1985, Dubai. This Emirati Artist has pursued visual

expression from a very young age. Graduating from Latifa School for Girls in 2003 she continued her studies at Latifa College, a satellite campus of Zayed University where she completed an intensive one-year diploma in art and design. In 2007 she graduated with a BA in Arts and Sciences, specialising in Graphic Design. The courses included jewellery design, 3-dimensional design, printmaking (lino, litho and etching), photography (analogue and digital), textile printing and studio painting.

Latifa, now married and a mother of two children, continues to pursue her career in Art and Design.

Artist statement

This piece is a visual narration of my mother’s anecdotes, a chain of events told in 10 verses. Every image tells a story; each image a chapter from the book of her life.

Khawla Al-Marri is an artist/art lecturer from Dubai who creates cultural

inspired contemporary art and design projects and lectures sixth grade elementary level students on contemporary art in the GCC region. Khawla’s work involves adopting and learning from the much-renowned works of Warhol, Van Gogh and Picasso, and tastefully merging it with a taste of life in her native UAE. She also practices street art both street art installation and graffiti as research projects.Khawla has a BA in Media Comm Studies and an MA in marketing communications.

Inspiration is derived from the great, but you need to add your touch of distinctively and speciality and I give my Middle Eastern touch in a well studied and designed way to my paintings. That I relay on “Pop Art� technique in producing them. Because, my paintings should represent me, and reflect my personality,, And reflects my culture, too. When someone contemplates panel of my paintings, it is assumed that the painting indicate heritage. Precisely for this reason it leads me sometimes to choose Arab stars to represent them in my paintings

Alia Lootah was born and raised in Dubai, her goals are to become an

established artist and curator. Through her work she wants to promote arts and culture in the UAE. Art has been the focus of Alia’s education with a BA in Fine Arts from the College of Fine Arts and Design at the University of Sharjah and and an MA in Art History and Museum Studies at Sorbonne University Abu-Dhabi. Lootah had an internship abroad at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Contemporary Art Department, in Paris. Alia is currently a lecturer at the College of Fine Arts and Design in the University of Sharjah.

Hind Mezain (1971) is a photographer based in Dubai, and has spent her

entire life in this continuously evolving city. Hind discovered Lomography, a style of photography that focuses on spontaneity and uses a special Lomo camera, by chance and has since dedicated her creative energy to this unique art form. Today, she is the Ambassador of the Lomographic Society of Dubai, a group of international lomographers. Hind’s lomographs have been widely exhibited throughout the U.A.E. and were featured in the March 2007 issue of Nylon magazine.

Being from Dubai and living here all my life, I have seen it go through a lot of changes. This fast evolving city is losing some of its old charms and I want to document the things that are often overlooked to remind others that life was simple here not so long ago.

My photography is a combination of using low-fi analog cameras and a mission to document the world we live in. I love experimenting with different techniques because the results are always surprising - the mundane can have a new and fresh look.

Bait Al Banat

A cultural initiative, unique in the Arab World and the Gulf Region.

A space to explore and celebrate the lives of women of the UAE. A place where people can meet and appreciate the achievements of the women of the UAE.