The Story of the Gold in the Desert Collection
This exhibition is the result of journeys I made to the UAE between 2015 and 2019 to explore the fluid edges of Dubai, a city built from oil and awash with gold, perched ostentatiously on the edge of a sun scorched desert and the Arabian gulf. Dubai was atransit stop on my travels to create exhibitions in Latvia and Portugal but it seemed only natural that manmade waterways in this bold city should eventually capture my attention.
My first impressions of Dubai were that of a carefully controlled culture that is unavailable to most outsiders, a place where luxury shopping and amusement parks seem to be its sole raison d'être. The city/state, its history mostly hidden by the brash high-rise buildings,
reminded me of a hyperrealist canvas, a mid 20th Century art form born with photorealism as its main influence (think work of American painters Chuck Close and Richard Estes).
One evening as I pondered whether I might not actually find the underlying visual aesthetic of this city, I stopped at the Al Rahmin Mosque situated on the banks of the Dubai Marina. As I peered through the windows a young man interrupted my thoughts, tapping me on the
shoulder and inviting me to in join him at prayers; he instructed me in the ablution rituals required to enter the Mosque and guided me in the kneeling and mediation process as theprayers proceeded. Slowly the cultural sentience of the Middle East began to embrace me.
A visit to the old port city of Deira and the extraordinary Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilisation revealed a history of an ancient visual culture built on decorative arts that avoided the presentation of living things, instead giving prominence to the work of artisans;
the architects, glassmakers, mosaicists, weavers, wood and metal workers that transformed their decorative pursuits into major artworks in their own right.
During this visit, I also learnt of the decorative art of Ebru (paper marbling), the process of adding colours tothe surface tension of water, and then capturing those colours with a sheet of parchment to create unique, often unexpected patterns. I began to realise that this culture was well versed in the value of decorative art... and the abstract.
Late that afternoon as I wandered back to the hotel I saw Dubai’s skyline awash with golden light while below me a gentle breeze on the waters of the Dubai Marina transformed the view into a mesmerising kaleidoscope of random patterns. I hired a small boat with a skipper and got on with my own process of capturing colours from water. I offer this new collection and the artworks, reflections created by nature on the surface of the water in Dubai, as my interpretation and as an entree to the wonderful world of Middle Eastern decorative art.
