DOHA: ‘Qatar and Brazil: A Contemporary Painting Dialogue’ exhibition featuring works by four Qatari and four Brazilian painters opens today at Katara Building 13.
The exhibition is hosted as part of the Qatar Brazil 2014 Year of Culture by Qatar Museums; the Ministry of Culture, Arts, and Heritage; and the Qatar Fine Arts Association. It explores the issues of identity and the cultural spirit of the present time through contemporary art. It includes 40 paintings, five from each of the eight artists.
The Qatari artists featured in the expo include Yousuf Khalifa Ahmed Al Sada, Lolwa Al Meghaiseeb, Amal Al Aathem and Ahmad Al Mosaifry. The Brazilian artists are Fernando Duval, Ronaldo Miranda, Ronaldo Macedo and Luiz Dolino.
Through symbolic representations, the artists create a dialogue of Qatari and Brazilian perspectives using the colours, textures and feel of their respective homelands. The artists use a range of methods in their works, including surrealism, informal abstraction, and geometrical abstraction. These paintings taken in together provide cross-cultural perspective on the contemporary art of Qatar and Brazil, and establish a framework for evaluating the areas of similarity and difference between the artists of these two countries and their approaches to self-expression.
Safiya Al Hajari, Director of the Office of Strategic Cultural Relations, said: “We in the Office of Strategic Cultural Relations, part of Qatar Museums, believe that culture is an important way to bring people together. Each year, we work with a partner country to develop a bilateral cultural exchange program called the Years of Culture that aims to foster understanding of Qatar internationally while also deepening our understanding of the partner country’s culture. Through exhibitions such as “Qatar and Brazil: A Contemporary Painting Dialogue” we are creating enduring partnership and friendships between both the institutions and individuals of Qatar and Brazil.”
The exhibition also uses multimedia to immerse visitors in a conversation with the painters about contemporary art. Screens positioned around the gallery play films specially created for Doha’s audiences featuring the artists discussing the inspiration, emotion, and execution of their work.
“The very unique aspect of this exhibition lies in the fact that the works displayed have been specially designed for this occasion; and because the artists have agreed to work with the predominance of Brazilian national colours — green, yellow, blue and white — a value that is also expressed in the paintings of our distinguished Qatari colleagues,” said Luiz Dolino, the Curator and one of the featured artists.
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