5 students, one exhibition

Young artists from the University of Sharjah held their first exhibition recently. Fatima Tapya reports

Five Sharjah University students recently exhibited their artwork at the Bin Sougat Centre, Dubai, recently.

The students - Arwa Khalid, Ebrahim, Dalal Chalaan, Ehab Gilani Subahi and Ahmad Minar - call themselves and their art exhibition IDEMA, coined using the initial letter of each student's first name.

Arwa Khalid, Dalal Chalaan and Ehab Gilani Subahi spoke to Notes about what prompted them to team up and work towards this exhibition.

Their professor, Anthony Collins, praised his students. He said they had been "self-motivated" in forming their group which ultimately resulted in the exhibition of their work.

What are you studying?

Arwa Khalid: I'm a student in the fine arts college. I think we should no longer call ourselves students, we are artists now.

Dalal Chalaan: I am studying graphic design; at the same time I like drawing very much and it is one of my interests, especially in black and white with black charcoal and soft pastel.

Ehab Gilani Subahi: I am studying fine arts at the college of fine arts. I am in my third year.

Who came up with the idea of holding an exhibition?

A.K.: It was a joke in the beginning when my friend said: ‘Hey! Why don't we have our own exhibition?' But later on our group loved the idea and worked on that. We encouraged ourselves, we wanted this exhibition to happen, we believed in ourselves and that was our inspiration.

D.C.: What inspired the idea? I came up with the idea, my parents liked it and encouraged me to do my own gallery; but I wanted to share it with some of my best friends from college. I think they are great artists and they've got wonderful drawings to show to people.

E.G.S.: It was Dalal's idea to make a gallery. After visiting a gallery done by our colleagues from college, we felt we could do the same.

How does it feel to have your work on exhibit?

A.K.: It is amazing to experience that, to feel that you are really responsible, that you want to give your audience all what you have and get yourself out there.

Honestly, it's a little bit scary because you want to succeed, and this is fine. Being scared means feeling responsible.

D.C.: First of all, we were under pressure because it was the first time we were organising an exhibition. For a moment I felt it won't succeed, but thank God the result came out better than I expected.

E.G.S.: I feel tense when I am in the spotlight. But it always feels great to hear some compliments and admiration of your work.

What problems did you face when trying to organise this event?

A.K.: We didn't face many problems because it's only all about knowing how to communicate with people who are working with you.

D.C.: In the beginning I felt nervous, and I put in a lot of effort, because as I said, it was the first exhibition for us. But we didn't face a lot of problems, just a few such as in hanging our drawings on the wall and stands, and designing them in a nice way to attract people. Also time was very short. But we tried our best to finish on time.

E.G.S.: Well this was the first time we exhibited our work outside college so we ran into a few things we never expected or thought of - such as offering to get the paintings framed, finding stands to hang the frames on and the cleaning and installing of stands, making invitations cards and posters, in addition to transportation problems.

Besides all this was during the study season. But we can't really call them problems.

How do you think this will help you in the future?

A.K.: It would help me because it's my starting point, this is where I'm going to start from and move on, and build upon my experience. And my responses to anything I do are definitely going to affect my future positively.

D.C.: I think it will help me a lot because now I have had a new and nice experience in my life. It tired me a little bit, but I learned a lot from it to organise my second gallery in the future Inshallah without any mistakes.

Also through this gallery I could meet new people and they know who I am by my unique style of drawing.

E.G.S.: Since I am planning to become an animator and work in graphic design or the media field, I don't think this will help in future. But I thing it was a great opportunity to share such an experience with my friends.

The writer is a student of marketing, management and journalism at the American University of Sharjah