Hope, whimsy and strong ties to the UAE emerge in Made in Tashkeel exhibition

Everything on display in Tashkeel’s gallery from this week was, as the name suggests, made on site.

The annual show, Made in Tashkeel, is a chance for artists, designers and photographers to showcase their work as a visual summary of the year gone by.

Resident artist Marwan Shakarchi, who goes by the pseudonym Myneandyours and is known for his cloud symbol with x-marks for the eyes, chose to feature a new work titled Something to Believe In. In the image, a woman is releasing a dove into a sky filled with his clouds.

“In this piece, I knew I wanted to send a message of hope. I knew this because I had come across people who didn’t seem to believe in it any more,” he says.

Printmaker Salama Nasib is a 27-year-old Emirati who used to work as the studio coordinator at Tashkeel before quitting to concentrate on her own art career. Her untitled piece on display is whimsical and surreal: a pencil-drawn circle filled with waves resembling hair, which then morphs into an image of a skyline. From the circle, a tree emerges and from this, several origami crane birds are hanging. The entire image has been transformed into a screen-print, a medium that Nasib has spent the year exploring.

Original article by Anna Seaman

Continue reading at The National:

Hope, whimsy and strong ties to the UAE emerge in Made in Tashkeel exhibition