Staring out of the frame, Hessa Al Ajmani’s self-portrait immediately catches the viewer’s attention. Her pencil drawing is a revelation of her inner spirit – her face sports warrior markings, her shoulders are covered in eagle feathers and part of her hand has morphed into talons. Subliminal Self Portrait is the Emirati student’s entry to this year’s Sheikha Manal Young Artist Award. Al Ajmani is studying visual arts at Zayed University, and she is one of the 80 artists who are having their work displayed in an open-air gallery on Dubai’s City Walk until Sunday – 50 of whom have been shortlisted for the award that will be announced next week.
“My portrait shows who I really am rather than what people think I am,” says Al Ajmani. “The markings on my face and hands have hidden symbols and meanings. This drawing is very personal because it illustrates challenges that I face every day that other people are completely oblivious about, but greatly affect the way they see me.”
Al Ajmani’s work has been entered into the fine art category for the award. The other categories include digital photography, multimedia and design – where entries included a Braille door handle for the blind and a Quran holder that spells out in Arabic the words of the Islamic declaration of faith.
In the multimedia category, Alhamza Al Sadr, an Iraqi graduate from the American University of Sharjah, produced a two-minute video called Spirit that follows the movement of a plastic bag in the wind.
“I wanted to move people to an emotional state,” he says. “You relate to the bag as a person rather than an inanimate object and it represents our journey through life.”
Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum says that the award, now in its ninth edition, was born from a need to establish a sustainable platform for the development of the arts.
Original article by Anna Seaman
Continue reading at The National:
Checking out the entries for the Sheikha Manal Young Artist award 2015
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