Mobeena Inam imparts her knowledge about the artist behind the exhibition, OUT OF TIME.
Jehan Saleh, is a Bahrain-based Egyptian artist who has been actively contributing to the rich art scene in the Kingdom for the last 15 years. Having acquired a degree in Art Education in Egypt, she moved to Bahrain in 2002 and taught Art at a school before furthering her career as an Art Curator and Business Development Manager at Al Bareh Art Gallery in Adliya, where she has been working for over 10 years.
Her upcoming exhibition, OUT OF TIME, will be on during Bahrain’s Spring of Culture festival 2017. It will present the works of twenty artists from across Europe and the Middle East. Each artist will be exhibiting 5 artworks -in mixed media- on handmade natural paper.
Jehan and co-Curator, Abdellah Ahaddaf, have collaborated and selected
international artists from countries as diverse as Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Egypt, Japan, Spain and the Netherlands.
Jehan’s concept for this exhibition is based on the idea that the artist step outside the constraints of time and disengage from worldly concerns in order to totally immerse in their creativity. The inspiration for this concept came in 2014, when she participated in the ‘8th Riudebitlles Art Biennial: Artwork on Paper’ in Sant Pere in Spain; a town renowned for producing hand-made paper from natural sources like cotton, leaves and flowers. Understandably, the exhibition was devoted to natural paper as the sole media for artists to work on and allowed Jehan the opportunity to tour paper-making factories and become familiar with this medium. Her own artwork, on Egyptian papyrus (‘Bardi’ in Arabic), was selected in the best 5 pieces exhibited and featured on the first page of the Biennial 2014 catalogue. Jehan also got ample opportunity to meet great artists from around the world. “I learned a lot from them how to be humble”, she admits modestly in her soft-spoken style.
Jehan’s illustrious success in Spain inspired her to curate her own exhibition in Bahrain, using the medium of natural, hand-made paper, and so began the idea for OUT OF TIME. It took hard work to select the 20 participating artists, of whom she is one. Two pieces by each artist will be displayed in free-floating style on the gallery walls.
All artworks are for sale and prices range between BD400 to BD1000. OUT OF TIME will be launched at Al Bareh Art Gallery on 7th March from 7-9pm, and will run until 30th March. The exhibition is open to the public and there are no entrance fees. ν
Mobeena Inam is a poet and writer living in Bahrain.
You can reach her at Mobeenainam@hotmail.com or
Tel. +973 3903 5617.