Category: MA Visual Arts: Fine Art Digital Blog

The blog documenting my journey as I complete a Masters of Visual Arts from University of the Arts London, 2017-2019

Final Show Final Set up

After a gruelling journey (6 hours on plane and then multiple occurrences to delay us further!) we finally made it to our airbnb. I was unable to make it to university on the 1st and I think I helped out far too less even on the 2nd and 3rd. But I definitely underestimated the challenges of travelling with all three kids and was bogged down by lack of sleep and the random upheavals of tired children (Manahil had a horrifying nosebleed for example :|). Anyway, thanks to a TON of help from Jonathan and Terry I was able to finally …

MindMap and WeHe Exhibitions

A while ago I was invited to a private viewing at Athr Gallery’s latest exhibit consisting of a group of international artists. When I went there I realized there was another exhibit on display on a different floor. So I got to see MindMap and WeHe at the same time. Mindmap was interesting to me from the start because it resembled so closely with what I was trying to exhibit in the final show. The artist in question was using lines to create a semblance of our thoughts. There was a massive installation in the center, a platform filled with …

A rock and a hard place

A rock and a hard place

A couple of months ago, right before the low residency in fact, I had a bit of a tough time. I had been battering away at Jeddah’s closed doors for the whole of Unit 1 and I guess I felt a little low at the realization that, while I had made some progress, Jeddah wasn’t the IDEAL place to grow as an artist. There was so little happening here, and so much preference given to Saudi artists even when it did, and so much barrier to freedom of expression. But I decided to keep going and I applied to Athr …

Another library, another mural

Some time ago I heard of another little library popping up in a busy neighbourhood of Jeddah. It was a library built on book donations and I decided to donate what I knew best. We put out an ad (to fundraise for the library) and invited children to come paint with me. It took a day to design the mural on the wall, another whole day for the kids to splatter it with paint and then a third day for me to finish up the work and varnish the wall. Everyone had a blast and I think the final result …