Read about Artspace, the galleries and the opening of it’s London gallery in the below articles by Financial Times and BrownBook
Financial Times: The Power of Painting
By Peter Aspden (May 12, 2012)
Visit Artspace London!
Artspace London has now opened it’s doors after a successful opening on the 9th of May 2012
A small preview…
of our upcoming exhibition opening for Mohamed Abla - Monday 23 April 7pm at Artspace Gallery, Gate Village 3, DIFC.
Yousef Ahmad Exhibition March 7 2012
ARTSPACE is pleased to be showcasing an innovative selection of works by Qatari artist, Yousef Ahmad, at an exhibition taking place from March 7th until April 23rd at Artspace Gallery in Gate Village DIFC Inspired by the forms and hues of the flat desert landscape of his native Qatar and by Arabic calligraphy, his paintings are often collages or mixed media works, where form meets color and texture, derived from natural elements.
A Night Where Fashion Meets Art - Artspace Gallery & COPIA Collaboration
& an exclusive first look at COPIA’s luxury lifestyle.
Dubai November 2011 - Artspace Gallery is pleased to be showcasing an innovative selection of works by the Lebanese artist Hussein Madi that is taking place from the 23rd of November to the 15th of December 2011. This exhibition is in collabor…ation with COPIA, a chance to get an exclusive first look at COPIA’s luxury brands.
Born in 1938 in Chebaa, Lebanon, he lived between Rome and Beirut from 1973-1986. In 1986 he decided to stay permanently in Beirut. His art has been viewed by thousands of people around the world at such venues as the British Museum, the Venice Biennale and Tokyo’s Ueno Museum.
Madi’s joyful experiments in color and form have resulted in a unique body of work that relates to modern artists like Matisse and Picasso as well as to the principles of divine harmony that inform the abstract designs of Islamic art. Madi’s work focuses on both figures and more abstract decorative works. Madi is known particularly for his delightful paintings of women, which are supposed to represent the daily life of ordinary women in Lebanese culture and society. These are of women both in the home and at leisure, whether relaxing on the beach, in their home clothes, or talking with their friends. His more abstract works are an extension of this as he paints leaves and natural vegetation as symbolism of life, beauty and happiness.
Whether in two or three dimensions, Madi’s lines sing with a spontaneous freedom that belies the careful, even exacting, calculations that the artist invests in each work. The combination of meticulousness and sensuality is everywhere evident in Madi’s work, inspired by his profound belief in “God’s universal order, in which everything is different and yet composed of the same cosmic elements.”
To give you more insight on our collaboration with COPIA:
Established and based in Dubai, COPIA offers intimate access to influencers and high net worth individuals of the Middle East region. Through COPIA’s strong network and innate understanding of the region and its consumer trends, they are capable of introducing, connecting and positioning brands within the ‘lifestyle’ world. They ‘spot’ brands that have yet to enter / make it into the Middle East region and develop growth strategies to effectively build and expand their brand. They work to develop long-term strategies, where brand knowledge, creative sensibility, influencer networks, and brand integrity are at the core. Their strategies represent all the key elements and capture the essence of the brand whilst bearing in mind local market trends. They work on comprehensive plans to penetrate the target market and create top of mind positioning for our brands.
Exhibition opening
A cocktail reception will be held at Artspace, located in The Gate Village, DIFC, from 6:00 pm on the 23rd of November 2011.
Our latest exhibition opening October 19th - Syrian artist Monif Ajaj
Monif Ajaj’s portraits are generally inspired by his daily life in Damascus and his childhood in Al Jezireh. Men are playing with their rosaries, slouching on the floor eating nuts and engaging the viewer with a penetrating gaze. Highly dexterous in his drawing, his exclusively male and almost life-size portraits depict Syrian society in a satirical way and are reminiscent of the work of early 20th century western artists, particularly Daumier.
In his recent work, influenced by internet, television and newspaper pictures which invaded the Syrian visual public and private space, Monif Ajaj presents street portraits including for the first time in his work, the presence of women. Mixing classical sanguine drawing with modern urban art as the spray used for graffiti, this large format new serie entitled “Mondaseen”* depicts the recent events in Syria.
*Arabic word meaning infiltrators used recently by the government to designate the protestators.
Adam Henein
ARTSPACE is excited to be participating at Marrakech Art Fair in 2 weeks time, from the 30th September - 3rd October. We’re bringing the work of three master artists of the Middle East to showcase on our stand - Hussein Madi, Adel El Siwi, and Adam Henein.
Sculptor Adam Henein was born in Egypt on March 31, 1929. Greatly influenced by the Pharoanic wonders of his homeland as a child, he completed his training as a sculptor at the Cairo Faculty of Fine Arts in 1953. Since that time, he has steadfastly devoted his life to the art of sculpture, from which nothing has distracted him, except the practice of colour drawing, in keeping with traditional Egyptian techniques. Today he is considered to be one of the major sculptors of our time. His work has been shown in Egypt, in the Arab world, in Europe, and at the Metropolitan in New York.
Ten years ago, after having lived for almost a quarter of a century in Paris, Henein returned to live in the country of his birth. Over this past decade, he has produced a number of granite sculptures. It was in Aswan, a city that since Antiquity has been famous for its granite quarries, that Henein established the International Sculpture Symposium, of which he has been director since 1996. He was awarded the State Award for the Arts in 1998 and the Moubarak Prized in 2004.
Alaa Ismail
Iraqi born Alaa Ismail (1974) started practicing the art of calligraphy from a young age. He studied various artistic disciplines at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Baghdad, including decorative arts, Islamic architecture, glass painting and Islamic Art, graduating in 2003. Currently living in Damascus, Syria, Ismail has taught and lead many projects looking into the use of calligraphy within Arab art, as well as promoting the importance of classical Arab music. His paintings seek to use calligraphy in an expressive and gestural manner, displaying words of meaning and poetic significance. This marrying of bold textural strokes combined with Ismail’s love of the Arabic word, successfully presents calligraphy in a colorful layered contemporary style.
Ismail has participated in the 4th Sharjah Calligraphy Biennale in 2010, shown as part of Iraqi Cultural Week in New York in 2009, and exhibited in numerous exhibitions in Iraq, Syria and Jordan. In 2010 he won first prize at the Al Burda Awards for modern calligraphy, an award presented by the Abu Dhabi Ministry of Culture.
