Qatar Museums (QM) has opened two unique exhibitions Wednesday at the Fire Station, featuring the works of a group of established and emerging Doha-based artists.
Gallery 3 hosts 'Abeer Al-Tamimi: Beyond the Rules ’, a solo exhibition by the artist that focuses on her interest in human interaction and behaviour while ‘Abstraction: Subverting Reality’ at Gallery 4 showcases more than 25 art pieces of 11 multidisciplinary contemporary artists: Noor Abuissa, Amna al-Baker, Shaikha al-Hardan, May al-Mannai, Hassan al-Mulla, Ebtisam al-Saffar, Ryan Browning, Sarah Jayyousi, Jesse Payne, Michael Perrone, and Twiggy Shmeissany.
“Abeer al-Tamimi did her residency in Paris as part of one of the Fire Station's programmes and this is the outcome of that exhibition so it's a series of paintings as well as experimental videos and more new media so it's both of those,” Fire Station’s exhibitions co-ordinator Amal Zeyad Ali told Gulf Times.
“She is very interested in interactions between human beings and different cultures and how that resonates and what we can learn from that,” she said. “During her residency, that's what she spent time surveying and interviewing other people to get a sense of that.”
For ‘Abstraction: Subverting Reality’, curator Ali noted that they reached out to a group of artists whose works delve into abstract while some have other kinds of work but also do abstract.
In curating the exhibition, Ali said they wanted to create an experience for audiences where they can have a different take away: their own feelings, memories, and emotions.
“It's not about telling audiences what to think or what to do and that's the beauty of abstraction, it is very open to interpretation so everyone can look at a different painting and say I see a landscape, but no I see a dinosaur it could be anything.
“It is working with so many different perspectives and the fact that abstraction is so broad that it can really amount to very different kinds of works and that's what we wanted to do,” said Ali.
Many of the participating artists of the two exhibitions, she noted, were former Fire Station resident artists and others form part of their alumni programme while some are new like Shmeissany who is taking part for the first time at the Fire Station.
Ali, who is also the curator of the ‘Abstraction: Subverting Reality’ and organiser of ‘Abeer Al-Tamimi: Beyond the Rules’, said they wanted to reach out to more artists, broaden up their horisons, and include more Doha-based artists.
“Some of them are up-and-coming, some are emerging, some are more established like al-Mula, here he’s been doing this for a very long time and I think it shows, and then we have artists that are also professors, so some of the artists have their whole career rooted in art and some of them work other things as well,” she added.
Gallery 3 hosts 'Abeer Al-Tamimi: Beyond the Rules ’, a solo exhibition by the artist that focuses on her interest in human interaction and behaviour while ‘Abstraction: Subverting Reality’ at Gallery 4 showcases more than 25 art pieces of 11 multidisciplinary contemporary artists: Noor Abuissa, Amna al-Baker, Shaikha al-Hardan, May al-Mannai, Hassan al-Mulla, Ebtisam al-Saffar, Ryan Browning, Sarah Jayyousi, Jesse Payne, Michael Perrone, and Twiggy Shmeissany.
Amal Zeyad Ali is the curator of the ‘Abstraction: Subverting Reality’ and organiser of ‘Abeer Al-Tamimi: Beyond the Rules’.
“Abeer al-Tamimi did her residency in Paris as part of one of the Fire Station's programmes and this is the outcome of that exhibition so it's a series of paintings as well as experimental videos and more new media so it's both of those,” Fire Station’s exhibitions co-ordinator Amal Zeyad Ali told Gulf Times.
“She is very interested in interactions between human beings and different cultures and how that resonates and what we can learn from that,” she said. “During her residency, that's what she spent time surveying and interviewing other people to get a sense of that.”
For ‘Abstraction: Subverting Reality’, curator Ali noted that they reached out to a group of artists whose works delve into abstract while some have other kinds of work but also do abstract.
Michael Perrone's work on display at Gallery 4 for the ‘Abstraction: Subverting Reality’ exhibition.
In curating the exhibition, Ali said they wanted to create an experience for audiences where they can have a different take away: their own feelings, memories, and emotions.
“It's not about telling audiences what to think or what to do and that's the beauty of abstraction, it is very open to interpretation so everyone can look at a different painting and say I see a landscape, but no I see a dinosaur it could be anything.
“It is working with so many different perspectives and the fact that abstraction is so broad that it can really amount to very different kinds of works and that's what we wanted to do,” said Ali.
Many of the participating artists of the two exhibitions, she noted, were former Fire Station resident artists and others form part of their alumni programme while some are new like Shmeissany who is taking part for the first time at the Fire Station.
Ali, who is also the curator of the ‘Abstraction: Subverting Reality’ and organiser of ‘Abeer Al-Tamimi: Beyond the Rules’, said they wanted to reach out to more artists, broaden up their horisons, and include more Doha-based artists.
“Some of them are up-and-coming, some are emerging, some are more established like al-Mula, here he’s been doing this for a very long time and I think it shows, and then we have artists that are also professors, so some of the artists have their whole career rooted in art and some of them work other things as well,” she added.
