ANAS ALBRAEHE

The artist starts each painting from life, never from photographs, and then lets his imagination guide the rest of the way, particularly with color choices. The resulting paintings are intuitive, soulful, and balanced explorations of color and shape. The artist draws inspiration from Henri Matisse and Paul Gauguin, while at the same time instilling his own unique perspective and sensitivity in the work.

The artist frequently paints sleeping subjects—while asleep, we are vulnerable, quiet, dreaming, free from the chaos of our everyday lives and onslaught of news and information. All men sleep and all are equal in sleep. Albraehe states:

The quilt wraps us up in our joys and sorrows and allows us to surrender ourselves and move away from life, if even for a few hours. When we are asleep, we are all alike—whether you are sleeping in a palace or a child sleeping in the street, both are absent from reality, and the quilt is as intimate as your own house. In the context of my paintings, each quilt takes on a different colour to show it as a unique home to its sleeper.

MAHREEN ZUBERI

Over the past few years I have been drawn to the idea of owning a piece of land to build on. A large part of the neighborhood where I walk with my father and my two young daughters is demarcated into 500 square yard plots that have not yet been built on. Much of this land is reclaimed from the sea. With no boundary walls erected, the land is wild, with indigenous plants growing in abundance.

My work reflects on the transience of life and the resilience of the human spirit. In the missing parts I saw new possibilities of change and excitement of an unknown reality. The absence made way to be filled with the more meaningful.