For more information on the workshop, please call: 00 (960) 7774043 or 00 (960) 7771458

Atholhu discussion form, 4 December 2008, Male

The first event by Atholhu was a discussion forum on the visual arts of the Maldives which took place on 4th December 2008at the Social Centre in Male. The discussion was centred around frour themes/questions: 1)What is the relationship between art and society?, 2) Does the state have a role to play in nurturing the arts?, 3) What is the role of art in the development of a society?, and 4)What is the future of Maldivian Art?

Maldivian artists Eagan Mohamed Badeeu and Mariyam Omar’s work is currently being displayed at the 13th Asian Art Biennale, held every two years in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The month-long event is held at three venues simultaneously in the city - National Art Gallery of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Bangladesh National Museum and Osmani Memorial Hall.

The art exhibition and competition has been organised by Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. With the leading mobile phone operator Grameen Phone sponsoring it.

13th Asian Art Biennale, Dhaka, 2008

The biennale was inugurated by the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy in 1981 and has been held every teo eyars ever since.  In this years’ event, artworks from Bangladeshi and 27 other coutnries are beign displayed. These include:  Chile, China, Egypt, Fiji, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Korea, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey and UAE.

13th Asian Art Biennale, Dhaka, 2008

13th Asian Art Biennale, Dhaka, 2008

Gemma Climpson, Enchanted Reef, Oil on Deep Edge Box Canvas, 30″ x 20″ x 1.5″

English artist Gemma Climpson specializes in painting idyllic landscape and seascape scenes from tropical destinations such as the Maldives, Mauritius and the Caribbean. She has also visited the Maldives and the clear turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean feature prominently in her canvases.
Gemma Climpson is scheduled to exhibit at the National Art Gallery, Maldives in early 2009.

Images, courtesy: http://www.gemmaclimpson.co.uk/

Martin Frederik, 18 (Image from the exhibition Dough Portraits at the Danish National Gallery, 2008)

Denmark art Søren Dahlgaard made a presentation about his work to invited artists and members of the National Art Gallery in July this year. Søren studied at the Slade School of Fine Arts in London and graduated in 2002. He lived in Maldives for two years 2002-04 and is married to a Maldivian. They now live in Copenhagen, Denmark. Søren presented photos and videos of his art projects, which involves the audience.
In the work of Søren Dahlgaard, method is challenged through narrative. His work is conceptual and linked to an extent to the ground breaking Gutai group, the New York avant-garde movement of the 1960´s as well as land art from the 1970´s. Visually he draws from the aesthetics of minimalism. Recently he has exhibited at P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center MoMA New York, Ileana Tounta Contemporary Arts Center, Athens and International Prize for Performance, Galleria Civica Museum of contemporary art, Trento, Italy.

Portrait Painting by the Dough Warrior, 2008.

Nick Law, Oil on Canvas, 36 by 12 inches (approx.), 2008

National Art Gallery (NAG), Maldives hosted its first artist-in-residence (AIR) earlier this year. Although the gallery has been supporting Maldivian artists to attend international AIR programs in the region and beyond, this is the first time an artist from another country had been invited to the Maldives to live and work for a period of three months. At the end of the residency, the artist had also produced a body of work that would be exhibited at the NAG later in the year. The artist, Nick Law (UK), a graduate of Grey’s School of Art, Scotland, made an initial presentation about his experience of the residency and his work to gallery members and local artists in July this year.

Nick Law, Oil on Canvas, 30cm by 30cm (approx.), 2008

After graduation Law had also spent three months traveling and painting in Florence, Italy, supported by a Royal Scottish Academy Scholarship. He paints realistic images of city life and landscapes and uses photography as an integral part of his process. More recently, he is also using photography as a medium ‘in its own right’, and his residency in the Maldives saw him use photos as final works of art rather than produce paintings based on the photos (sometimes photo collages, as he works on a composition by juxtaposing sections of various photos together).

Nick Law, digital photo, 2008

- Aminath Shareehan Ibrahim , digital photo

Photography has been practiced in the Maldives for long. But mostly, the medium was primarily used for documentary purposes. Some of the earliest images of the Maldives (and Maldivians) are photographs taken by visiting officers of the colonial English government based in Sri Lanka. This dates back to the latter part of the 19th century and early 20th century. Beginning from mid 20th century, Maldivians also began taking photographs. One of the first and most well known Maldivian photographers is of course Mr. Ali Najeeb who also at point acted as the official photographer of the first President Mohamed Ameen. His apprentices ‘Baa’ and ‘Alifulhu’ are also still fondly remembered by several, especially the elite who lived on Male at the time.

Then came tourism and all of a sudden photographs of the Maldives seemed to be everywhere, published as easily available post-cards and posters and featured in books. These were mostly photos of Maldives and Maldivians taken by photographers on commission by tourist marketing agencies; perhaps Michael Friedel is the most famous, whose images of the Maldives are still ubiquitous amongst souvenirs and mementos of the country. With the easy availability if digital cameras a new generation of Maldivians have taken to the medium and have also moved away from the stereotyped depiction of the Maldives as ‘sun, sea and sand’, although this is a most convenient, tried and tested genre of photographing the country as it has a ready market among tourism marketers. But a more interesting development is that there are also now photographers who look for images that reveal more of the intricacies of the experience of actually living in the Maldives.

The image above and the following three are of photos taken by Aminath Shareehan Ibrahim who is known as ‘Bulha’ on her photo blog on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bulhaa/ They caught my eye while surveying the work of contemporary photographers in the Maldives.

- Aminath Shareehan Ibrahim , digital photo

- Aminath Shareehan Ibrahim , digital photo

- Aminath Shareehan Ibrahim , digital photo

Opening night of Visual memory

Afzal Shafiu Hassan’s first solo exhibition “Visual Memory” opened at the National Art Gallery, Male, on 24th April 2008 and will continue until 4th June 2008. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog with full color images of all the work included in the exhibition and a short essay I wrote for the publication. The catalog is available for sale from the gallery.

‘In Silent Spaces’, an exhibition by Male’-based artist Hassan Ziyad has opened at the National Art Gallery. The exhibtion will run from 7th February to 13th March 2008. Opening hours are 1000hrs to 1600hrs daily, except for Fridays and public holidays. Entrance is free.

Ziyad at the opening on 7th February 2008, NAG

From the catalogue of the exhibtion:

“Hassan Ziyad began to seriously consider a career in the visual arts in the late 1990s. Leaving school from grade 7, the only formal art education he had was the lessons he was given in the art class at school.

In the mid- 1990s, Ziyad together with a friend who was also involved in the production of souvenirs, submitted one of his paintings to a charity art exhibition and competition organized by a primary school in Male where Ziyad’s wife worked. Some of the judges of the competition included the established Maldivian artists Naushad Waheed and Hussain Afeef as well as art teachers from the schools of Male. Ziyad had made a painting for the competition which was selected for the exhibition, from which it was purchased by Naushad. He later offered Ziyad to work in his souvenir production studio and offered Ziyad the monthly wage of Mrf 7000/-, which was a relatively high amount for the time (early ‘90s).

When he accepted the offer, Ziyad was employed by Naushad in his studio where Ziyad’s main task was to do the backgrounds of hand-painted t-shirts for the tourist souvenir market. However, after months of Ziyad beginning to work, Naushad’s studio was shut down. Ziyad then began working from home where several of his friends joined him to produce hand painted t-shirts for the souvenir market as well as large scenic paintings for resort interiors. He later registered the label ‘Quadro Studio’ (Italian for painting) to facilitate the logistics of his growing practice which included billing and receiving payments from customers and clients. Ziyad received many large orders from souvenir retailers for his products which went on to include t-shirts, hand-painted tiles, mugs and glasses.

Although Ziyad was doing well commercially, he wanted more and more to be making work that would allow him to improve his skills as a draftsman and painter, which led him to paint more than make the other items he was producing for the souvenir trade. Mostly working from photographic references, Ziyad’s paintings mostly feature sceneries which include beaches and seascapes as well as coconut palms and other trees and foliage found in the Maldives. Additionally, he also paints mosques – old ruins of mosques as well as picturesque views of mosques presently used. And most recently he has also introduced a mosque interior; the meticulously detailed rendering of the interior of Hukuru Miskii (or Friday Mosque) in Male, which is one of the oldest in the country. A very striking aspect of his work is also how Ziyad handles light and its intricate reflections on objects. And throughout most of his works there is a sense of deep contemplation of nature and forces stronger than anything human. In one of the paintings exhibited in the inaugural exhibition of the National Art Gallery, Maldives Contemporary 2005, the painting ‘Tsunami’ shows the destructive power of this force. A house where once people lived is destroyed to rubble. The painting of this scene is a detailed depiction of the destroyed house, with rays of light reflected on the once standing structure now reduced to pieces of brick and cement. In the paintings where nature is depicted as a life-giving and positive force, for instance the thick vegetation and coconut palms, the sense of contemplation even borders on something akin to reverence. And it is all the more impressive when we know that Ziyad’s detailed and highly realistic paintings – which are often layered to produce the desired effects including the right shades and hues of colors, are produced using acrylic based poster colors which are quick to dry and difficult to correct mistakes with unless an entire area of the painting, or sometimes the whole of it, has to be reworked.

‘In Silent Spaces’ is Hassan Ziyad’s first solo exhibition.”

Source and copyright: National Art Gallery, Maldives