The Cure8Art art gallery has just opened in town and it has been launched with a group art exhibition titled, “Method of Creative Imagination,” featuring the artwork of 13 artists. The gallery is located in Grand Hyatt Muscat. The exhibition is to be held until Dec 11th.
The founder of the gallery, Sarah Ahmed Faris al Aulaqi, who is an Omani artist, curator, photographer and director of Cure8Art said the artworks are a result of the course, Method of Creative Imagination led by Dr Nasser Palangi who, everywhere he travels, tries to preserve the ethnicity of art as well as create an art movement.
“Dr Palangi believes in preserving heritage through art at the same time contemporising it. In the gallery we focus on two things: educating on techniques in art, basics and on to how to collect, how to value art and how to stand on your two feet as an artist,” said Sarah.
The course had begun at the National Museum of Oman by showcasing the designs, patterns, images seen throughout Omani history and at the same time giving the artists the tools to unlock their creative imaginations like an illusion.
“We tend to lose creativity as we grow; for example, when we are young we look at the clouds and imagine different shapes, but as we grow older we lose that. Dr Palangi comes up with techniques to unlock the fundamentals,” she explained.
The result is the art exhibition.
The curator of the exhibition, Farideh Zariv said it was easy to choose their artwork for the exhibition because they knew their work already.
“There is a common language between them and that is the language of art,” she said.
The participating artists are Al Zahra Hussain, Abeer al Moosawi, Afra Talal al Said, Elizabeth Davis, Iman al Maskari, Mirna Youssef, Boushra Khalfan al Shabibi, Maya Youssef, Minorca al Zedjali, Raya Saleh al Maskari, Sahwa Mustahail al Mashani, Sara Abdulrazaq Madan and Shalini Gupta Kumar.
A supporter of art, Mona al Ritchie said she wanted to support the work of this talented group of women. “This is an incredibly talented group of women who have come out with wonderful pieces of art, which are reflections of their creativity. I think the art scene in Oman has grown exponentially over the years. I remember earlier there were few people. Of course, we have Anwar Sonya, Hassan Meer and so many others and then it is also lovely to see this amount of creativity coming along as well. I am not an artist but I love to see what is being created and being shown to the world. Art brings us together and it transcends culture. Art is a universal language,” Mona reflected.
Especially proud of his students is Dr Nasser Palangi.
The artist after practising methods of creative imagination explored the illusion method.
“They did hundreds of artwork practising collages, 2D and 3D. Behind this series, we can see the experimenting processes. Then I asked them to select their final artwork,” said Dr Palangi.
The artists went through critique sessions with visual principles and encouraged them to try to achieve harmony, balance and focal point.
“Art is there to achieve unity. Just getting to the unity and beauty of nature as well as your imagination through your art, you make your personal unity and space. In our paintings here you can see the unity of warm colours, harmony in grey, different paintings with a variety of forms, textures, light and colour and then the focal point. It is in a way creating a symphony,” reflected Dr Palangi.
According to him, the visual alphabets are limited in a way, but it is infinity in another way.
“Shape, volume, composition and texture; in addition to energy, harmony, movement, balance, repetition and contrast – it is how we deal and make the connection with the alphabets and principles. This is where the challenge is. This is the challenge everyone should take to make their own personal symphony,” urged professor Dr Nasser Palangi.
