Artistic experiments from Qatar: Mohammed Atiq speaks about his work

Experimental and ready to provoke, Mohammed Atiq is among the pioneers in the development of the Qatari artistic scene. Member of several Art Societies in Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, he was the head of the Graphic Department at Qatar TV and he is currently the chairman of the Qatar Fine Arts Society. Atiq has held solo exhibitions in his home country as well as in Italy and has participated in a number of collective exhibitions in countries like Oman, Lebanon, Bangladesh, Cairo, and Italy. His work, awarded in several occasions, is currently being exhibited at the House of Culture in Sana’a during the “Sana’a International Forum for Plastic Arts” (17-24 May 2009).

Yemen Observer (YO): -How did your artistic career start and develop?Mohammed Atiq (MA): -The beginning was as that of any child or student that loves to draw. My father used to like to work on handicrafts, things in which he could use his hands, and he worked on tools used for falcons (which is common in the Gulf countries). He worked on the things used to hold the falcon like the hat the animal wears or the glove you need to put in your hand to hold it. I loved to see how my dad worked on these things and I learnt from him. The love and the innate talent for this kind of creative work was always inside myself. In the beginning I worked on handicrafts, which I learnt from my dad, later on I developed my skills. I remember when I was at school I was already particularly drawn to arts: when everyone would go out during the break I preferred to go the class and draw. My activity related to arts developed quickly and I held my first solo exhibition when I was still in middle school. I was only 14 years old. When I was in secondary school I held a second exhibition. During this time I also started to draw for a children’s magazine, one or two issues only, and after that I went to draw with young people at a center where I could exercise my drawing skills and I participated in a competition in the Gulf region. I obtained the first prize in the festival of Jeddah in 1987. After that I participated in many exhibitions and they made my work improve more and more. In 1987 I stopped painting and I started to work in Qatar TV as a video technician. During five years I worked with screens and producers and this experience changed my ideas. During this period, and without notice, I obtained a prize for my graphic work. What was shocking is that many people where candidates to this prize, people that had long worked on graphics, whereas I was new. Later on I told the director that that prize should go to people that paint, and he asked me ‘who can draw?’ and I said, ‘I do.’ From 25 workers I was the only one that could do such thing. This is how I established the graphics department in Qatar TV. Also because I was capable of drawing, because I was a member of the Arts Society in Qatar and because I was the director of that department, when I needed workers I took people that knew how to draw from Qatar. That it is how this project became a department for graphics. Foreign departments of graphics received our bulletin and came to know about us, and thanks to that their way of thinking about us also developed and opened. The colors, the execution, and the completion changed. After five or ten years, when I became more skilled, a new competition in Qatar was announced. All my friends told me to participate but I didn’t want in the beginning because it had been ten years since I didn’t draw. When I started to draw again I came back in a different way: I did collages, experimented, I did not start in the way I would in the past.

YO: -How did your technique change?
MA: -The technique definitely changed: I used materials that were different like materials that were already used thus recycling them. I used garbage, things I would find in the streets, and in the competition I obtained the second place. My family encouraged me a lot and when I won they continued to do so saying that I had won the prize after having a pause of ten years without drawing. I decided to continue and the Ministry of Education helped me to make a workshop to learn and teach to other people thus forming new teachers. Teachers came from the university and the Ministry asked them to teach back what they learnt. After a year or two, there was an exhibition in Qatar, for mix media and materials, and everyone was influenced by me and my work. This became a movement, a new movement, and it appeared in several books. Because people were writing about this, they spoke about me as the responsible for the change of ideas taking place in Qatar. I was happy because my ideas served to influence people and artists. In this exhibition I used egg’s cardboards only and until today people still remember and ask where the cardboards went. I was also the first Qatari artist that made a performance: I performed a person that carries things in the suq, we call them ‘carriers’ and they go around the suq with little carts carrying all sort of things. During 20 days I went to the suq and I sat down with carriers in order to learn about their work. From morning to evening I stayed there, talked with them, and tried to buy a cart from them but they didn’t want to sell it because otherwise they wouldn’t have a means to work. I wondered a lot why they didn’t want to sell it to me, but they said it was because the carts were their source of income, the only way for them to gain their lives. During the exhibition I entered the room wearing a white thaub and told everyone I was the director of the Arts Society in Qatar, just to spread the rumor. Then, I left without telling anyone and I dressed up with the clothes carriers wear at the suq and I put a black sock on my head. I saw people but people couldn’t see me. I put my ghutra around the head and took the cart around, walked around the people. I stat down to rest and did everything in the way carriers from the suq do, I even spoke with their words. This was the best thing I have ever done in my life. After this people started to know who I was, to recognize me.

YO: -How did people react?
MA: -People hit me, tried to lift the sock from my head, they didn’t know it was me. I knew all the people there but they dint know that I was me, doing a performance. After an hour had passed they found out what was going on. Afterwards everyone thought it was funny. In Qatar this provoked a new movement and people started to work in this line and not in painting only. This became art for everyone. I scored a point, I did something new, I was a pioneer, I experimented with something new. I competed to become the president of the Society of Arts and in that time, young artists were scared or feared to apply to high posts like this one but I didn’t fear it. The previous president held the post during three terms, that is ten years, and because he was very well known everyone feared competing against him. I was the first one to contest him and after ten years I became the new president. I became well known because I broke down walls that other people feared. I always try to break walls, I work with myself, with my own limitations, and I am passionate about what I do. Due to this I got where I am today. I am not an academic artist but I obtained prizes: in 2003 I obtained the prize in the biennale in Dhaka (Bangladesh), and in 2008 I obtained the first prize in the following competition. Thanks God I have the experience necessary and I can continue.

YO: -What do you try to express through your work?
MA: -My work always expresses pain, a pain that comes from inside myself, from my feelings. I try to make these feelings come out. I have my own idea of things and I express them by means of my own technique. I like old things and I try to work them out in a new way, and this is what brought me to the summit, the top of realistic work. Some people thought and said that I was metaphysical, impressionist, but I was realistic and at the top of it. For me both were the same things. It is as if you would look at a building and look at it with a zoom, then you make the image bigger, and bigger, and bigger: this is a realistic work, it is a scene from life, which is what I like to do and I take it from real life. I am convinced about this, about the fact that a metaphysical view is at the top of realism.

YO: -But your work is very abstract, how do you reconcile it with realism?
MA: -You need to find a way for your style to be beautiful and I have this capacity with my work, to mix paintings and make a nice mix. I can work with garbage and still find something beautiful. I am not scared of trying these things because I love this, I love to do this. It is not important if people will buy it or not, like it or not, I like to do this work.

YO: -What inspires you?
MA: -My source of inspiration comes from the environment, from things that I see outside…things I see, like techniques I see, technology although this is more famous in the West. My choice of subjects comes from the environment. For instance, now that I am in Yemen, I appreciate that the environment is very rich here, but the question is what do you take from it? What do you chose from it? The point or the subject is to take things in a general sense: take something from women’s clothes, people’s faces, from the top of the city, there are many things you can do. This is something special and unique to art: you can take things and ideas from everywhere. You can take any direction and work on it. When you research you reach new places, and when you finish this research a new one starts; you can continue for other 10 years researching the same thing, you can die researching.

YO: -What do you know about contemporary art in Yemen?
MA: -This is the first time I come to Yemen but due to my work I always listen to or read about the news from other countries. Because nowadays everything is online, I knew many things about Yemen before coming but being here made me see how beautiful the country really is. Meeting people from Yemen and coming to Yemen got me embedded in the roots of this beauty.

YO: -How is the situation of art in Qatar?
MA: -In Qatar art is not very old, is young, I think art is around 30 or 40 years old. Yemen, Saudi Arabia or Egypt have an older history in terms of art than Qatar. The political decisions related to culture and economy as well as the interest in Qatar has made the country take more and more steps towards a quick development. Qatar has reached a point where it left behind other countries of the region in terms of art and culture. Today Qatari artists are important in the artistic scene of the region, they are influential, they have obtained several prizes that confirm this. These prizes made them well known. This proves that there is interest and that art and culture develop. This is something that pushes the country forward.

YO: -Do people show a special interest in art in Qatar?
MA: -Art reflects the level of society’s interest; there is a correlation between the age of society and the age of art. If the society is conservative, as an artist, you need a lot of time to change this through your work, but with time it is possible. Qatari society became closer and closer to art, little by little…at the beginning art and Qatari society were far away from each other. 20 or 30 years ago there were no galleries in Qatar, and nowadays, we have between three and four that are specialized in contemporary art. Tomorrow, or in 15 days, we will have a city dedicated to art. It will be called the ‘neighborhood of culture’ and it will have photography, painting, poetry, literature, theatre, music, everything will be there, there will be a roman theatre, an opera…it will be a whole city dedicated to art. This is a prove that art will became as famous as sports.

YO: -What are your future projects?
MA: -I am now thinking about working on sculptures. I am a graphic designer and I don’t use my ideas in pieces, in big pieces. I want to work on big pieces because I am thinking about how to do this for the city: monumental sculptures.  I am thinking about 10 or 15 meters, for the city or for outside Qatar. I have to work on the sketches and the models, and later on I will look for sponsors to do it. This is my idea so far.

Related Content

•   Alcohol sells from hidden points in Yemen
•  IRIN: Fighting in north Yemen leads to fresh displacements
•  Yemen President’s visit to the United States has other purposes than medical treatment
•  YEMEN: Little hope of swift return for Abyan IDPs, says report
•   African refugees to Yemen surpass expectation, says UN report
•   Al- Hujrain, Yemen’s treasure trove
•  Campaign in Yemeni to revolt against Qat
•   IRIN: Yemen coping with unrest - aid workers turn to the community
•   Qat diminishes Yemen water resources
•   Qat depletes Yemen water resources