Artsharks: Bridging the art gap

Artsharks is not an art gallery and they are not art brokers. They are an art house that supports only aspiring/budding artists and people who don’t have the clout, or sometimes desire to ‘make it’.

They want to ‘bridge the art gap’ and to show people who say ‘I’m not much of an art person’ that art isn’t just for the elite or connoisseurs, and that you can have art in your lives for mere aesthetic purposes. They sometimes collaborate with other artists to create art pieces but everything is under the art house’s name.

Arab News met with the Bahraini founder Manayer AlSharekh of Artsharks in a Jeddah-based Ramadan bazaar and talked about their work, goals and future plans.

How would you describe your style?
I’ve always liked creativity as a whole from a very young age, from art to music to even poetry and advertising. My dad’s been a patron of art since as long as I can remember so I guess I just inherited that. I went to school at Central Saint Martins and graduated with a BA (Hons) in Graphic Design and Diploma in Foundation Studies in Art & Design in London but when I graduated I couldn’t pursue a career in art and went to work at an investment company.

There I decided to get my post-grad in business so I can be better equipped to make money with my art degree. I got my MSc in Technology Entrepreneurship from UCL, which is a joint program with LBS where I studied the business part of my program as an MBA student. I wanted to start Artsharks ARTHouse on my own without any help from my family so I asked them to give me my MSc graduation gift in cash (whatever they were gonna get me — even iTunes gift cards). I used that as a start-up capital.

Original article by Dina Soufi

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Artsharks: Bridging the art gap