Two exhibitions to begin tomorrow at Fire Station

The Fire Station: Artist in Residence will Tuesday launch two simultaneous exhibitions, 'Mubarak Nasser al-Thani: Espresso 4 the Road' at Gallery 4 and 'Yousef Bahzad: Earth Metal' at Gallery 3.

The exhibitions will be on view until July 16 for residents and visitors to explore. 'Mubarak Nasser al-Thani: Espresso 4 the Road' will focus on the rise of the metropole and the birth of global culture and how it connects people, both physically and culturally. Mubarak Nasser al-Thani’s work covers architecture, flora and fauna, geography, history, exploration, among others. Travel and road trips are a large part of the process while creating this body of work. The playful depiction of iconic symbols stresses the universality of global culture, and how we come to perceive it. The artworks also capture the non-tangible human side of global culture like amusement parks, circuses, playgrounds and others that are not necessarily a destination, but rather things embedded in our everyday life, through our moods, feelings, thoughts and behaviour. The second exhibition to open on the same day, titled Earth Metal by Yousef Bahzad, explores themes of erosion and manifestation, and the notion that the land itself shapes people, and subsequently, people thereon shape the land. Bahzad believes he approaches his paintings “through expressive abstraction and a tinge of the surreal through a lens of mystery which invokes questions within the viewer.”Artists in the limelightMubarak Nasser al-Thani is a self-taught artist who works with dimensions, colours, geometrics, abstraction, and literal expressionism to capture cities, skylines, horizons, interaction, culture, history and politics. Al-Thani was a resident at the Fire Station (2017-2018) and at the International Studio & Curatorial Programme (ISCP) (2021). He participated in exhibitions in New York City, Geneva, Saint Petersburg and Doha. He has a BA from Georgetown School of Foreign Service and an MA in Urban Planning from New York University Yousef Bahzad is a Qatari American visual artist. His practice consists of mainly painting and experimental photography. All his art forms supplement and feed into one another, with regards to tone, colour and imagery. He maintains and builds upon a visual mythos which consists of past drawings, paintings, and photographs to harness in the creation of new artwork. Through this visual mythos, he explores personal and universal human themes. Bahzad was a resident at the Fire Station (2017-2018) and at ISCP (2021).