In the second of a new weekly series, the digital artist Summayah al Suwaidi talks about the creative process behind a work from her new exhibition at the Ghaf Gallery
When Summayah al Suwaidi finally came out with the gothic, purplish melodrama that is Standing Still, it's no exaggeration to say she was in meltdown, she recalls. She had been holding down three day jobs, caring for five children and her art had been going nowhere for the best part of a year.
"I'd had my second baby in 18 months, and was looking after my three other stepchildren. I'd started a new job, and had two other jobs on the go. I was curating shows, and I was running my boutique at Al Wadha mall, selling cards and gifts." Friends were telling her to be careful, but hearing this would annoy her. "People were telling me I had to slow down, if I kept doing too much I'd go crazy. But I was sick of hearing it. I didn't answer the phone, and I wasn't returning e-mails."
She went to ground and, holed up at home incommunicado for a week, the Emirates' first female digital artist would sit at her desk, but nothing would come. "I'd hit a kind of creative block," she says. "Months had gone by and I hadn't produced anything worthwhile. I felt I was losing my touch." The panic attacks and crisis of confidence she was going through may have been a form of depression, the artist says now.
"I was unsatisfied with my training in graphics. I was reading books, looking at art, trawling the web. Finally, I went back to my basic methods and techniques." And in the personal watershed that followed, a strange, primordial beast was born. Measuring 123cm by 61cm, the digitally-enhanced photomontage depicts a rapturous figure, half pre-Raphaelite beauty, half blasted oak, standing the test of the elements on some wasted shoreline.
"No matter what the weather throws at her, she's stood there, her head held high," al Suwaidi says. "She's rooted like a tree, standing strong and standing her ground." Coming across the original image on the web, something in the model's demeanour struck a chord, and compelled al Suwaidi to work, she says. The stock image went through a series of digital transposals, taking on an oil-and-acrylics effect that owes its finish to al Suwaidi's skill with a laptop tablet and stylo-pen.
There's a heavy dose of surrealism in the branches of her hair, a visual trope that recurs in the way her trunk is rooted to the earth, while the heavily wrought scoring of the veins at her wrist find their rhyme in the taut sinews at her neck. "I'd been feeling for so long I didn't want to paint, or wanted too much to paint, but nothing would come. But when I came across this, it made me feel I needed to paint. Like keeping a visual diary, it let me speak of troubling things, fears and insecurities like losing the ones you love."
Another piece, Untouchable, was inspired by a bout of depression, while Love Stitched came after a row with her husband. "It must have been a big row," a friend joked of the two metre-wide montage. It was a landmark piece for her, she says, and opened the floodgates to a whole spate of other works. Al Suwaidi is now curating the Express Yourself 30x30 group exhibition at the Marsam Mattar Gallery in Dubai from November 8, while next year she tours China as part of another group show.
She is just back from what she describes as an "educational tour" of Berlin, after a trip to Sweden. One hopes the lack of let-up won't bring on a recurrence of any nervous affliction, but like her bleakly resilient heroine, Al Suwaidi says she has learnt how to handle it. "As an artist, it's something you have to expect."
* Timur Moon
The exhibition is open daily until October 13, 9am-1pm & 5-9pm (closed Fridays), Ghaf Gallery, Abu Dhabi, 02 665 5332.
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NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
HAJJAN
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Without Remorse
Directed by: Stefano Sollima
Starring: Michael B Jordan
4/5
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
TOP 5 DRIVERS 2019
1 Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 10 wins 387 points
2 Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, 4 wins, 314 points
3 Max Verstappen, Red Bull, 3 wins, 260 points
4 Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, 2 wins, 249 points
5 Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 1 win, 230 points
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Top 5 concerns globally:
1. Unemployment
2. Spread of infectious diseases
3. Fiscal crises
4. Cyber attacks
5. Profound social instability
Top 5 concerns in the Mena region
1. Energy price shock
2. Fiscal crises
3. Spread of infectious diseases
4. Unmanageable inflation
5. Cyber attacks
Source: World Economic Foundation
Ipaf in numbers
Established: 2008
Prize money: $50,000 (Dh183,650) for winners and $10,000 for those on the shortlist.
Winning novels: 13
Shortlisted novels: 66
Longlisted novels: 111
Total number of novels submitted: 1,780
Novels translated internationally: 66
Company profile
Company name: Suraasa
Started: 2018
Founders: Rishabh Khanna, Ankit Khanna and Sahil Makker
Based: India, UAE and the UK
Industry: EdTech
Initial investment: More than $200,000 in seed funding
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
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The Outsider
Stephen King, Penguin
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
