Taking art by the antlers

Among the various events that recently celebrated the Sultanate of Oman's 40th National Day, The Oryx Caravan project has been particularly significant in that it has set a precedent for public art exhibitions in Oman while promoting a message of environmental awareness regarding Oman's national animal, the Arabian oryx.

This open-air art project commissioned local and international artists to paint their designs upon 40 life-size fibreglass oryxes; these were then displayed in prominent public locations around Muscat. Initially placed in the capital's Ministries' District, the oryxes were shifted to the Bait Zubair Museum.

They are now part of the Muscat Festival, which began in the last week of January. This movement is reminiscent of a herd of oryxes migrating from one place to another and hence the inspiration behind the project's caravan appellation.

"I had nurtured this idea for a long time and was able to see it reach fruition with the financial support and encouragement of the Oman India Fertiliser Company [OMIFCO]," said Hassan Meer, project manager of The Oryx Caravan and a well-known Omani artist himself.

Apart from its association with the mythical creature, the unicorn, the oryx forms an integral part of the Arabian Peninsula's environmental consciousness. Adel Bin Sakhey Al Balushi, director of finance and administration, OMIFCO, said the company chose to organise the event to allow artists of the sultanate and abroad to paint the oryx as they perceived it through their aesthetic lens, thus bringing in an array of artistic schools of thought from within Oman and across the world.

Furthermore, he said, positioning the oryx as the central subject of the project was all the more deliberate to support the extensive efforts that Oman has undertaken to protect the endangered species by rehabilitating it in its original habitat, Jiddah Al Harasis in the Al Wusta Region.

In such a situation, with its numbers diminished and the creatures being rarely sighted, the oryx emerges as a mythical creature of sorts.

"Apart from crucially raising awareness about the oryx, I hope the project will be particularly educative for children, as they will be able to see the oryx in its real-life dimensions," Meer said.

An Indian team was responsible for creating life-size fibreglass models of the oryx; meanwhile, a competition was held in October soliciting designs from local and international artists.

"The artists were given artistic carte blanche to create whatever they wished," Meer said, adding that they received 180 designs. The artists of the winning designs were then given the opportunity to transpose the designs upon the oryxes during a workshop at the Omani Society for Fine Arts, after which the completed oryxes were displayed at the exhibition.

"This is the first public art exhibition of its kind in Oman and we are hoping it will create awareness about art that is not merely confined to galleries," Meer said. The herd of brightly hued, patterned and embellished orxyes occupying the public spaces conjures up an eclectic artistic spectacle indeed, along with the dynamics of the artists' experiences, mainly debut, in painting three-dimensional figures and the audience's responses to the innovative concept.

The exhibition is a veritable testament to the range of the artists' literal and imaginative palettes, each imbuing the oryx with its distinctive artistic vision.

Anna Dudchenko's oryx was emblazoned with a maelstrom of multicoloured alphabets while Enaam Ahmad's silver-and-blue-hued oryx conjured up the beauty of the ocean.

Leading Omani installation and conceptual artist Budoor Al Riyami opted to cover her oryx in the colour and texture of sand before partially embellishing the body with pieces of twisted white rope — the effect was an intriguing interpretation of the oryx's surface, mimicking both its natural fur and the literal ground upon which it treads.

Calligraphic representation

An upcoming Omani artist participating in the exhibition, Mohammad Al Mamari, explored the Arabic letter representing oryx, maha, as the central calligraphic motif of his oryx; the usage of calligraphy demonstrated the intertwining of the aesthetic visual power of language with that of the graceful lines of the oryx's figure. He also painted it in graduated shades of beige, tan and russet brown, thus embodying the desert habitat in which the oryx roams.

"For me, one of the challenges was how to transfer the sketch to the three-dimensional oryx shape, as I was accustomed to painting on flat canvas," Al Mamari said.

Eisa Al Mufarji's crimson red oryx with cut-out work details also stood out — the artist took the oryx apart and re-assembled it, a literal deconstruction of the oryx figure. Red also found currency with another young Omani artist, Raya Al Manji, who dedicated her oryx to Oman's National Day by colouring it white, red and green.

A similar colour scheme was seen in the oryx of former Oman resident and Malta native, Stephanie Borg. Borg gravitated towards the richness of Oman's costume and textile heritage for her oryx designs.

When she first encountered the blank oryx, she instinctively knew how she wished to dress it up. Dressing became the operative detail of her artistic engagement with the oryx.

"There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to pay a direct tribute to the traditional attire of Omani women, which has provided me with so much inspiration during my six-year living experience in the sultanate," she said. She adapted the different garments that make the full dress ensemble, which is loosely based on the basic Omani style made up of dishdasha, sarwal and waqaya, to fit and wrap around the oryx; she also added an actual piece of jewellery on the oryx's head, rather than drawing it in.

"I left the oryx's face blank and anonymous on purpose, to draw attention to the attire. My message was clear: Just as the oryx is a protected species, so should be the fascinating Omani dress heritage, preserved in all its variations for future generations to enjoy," she said.

Indian artists Kanak Mitra and Jitendra Baoni explored the notions of nature, fertility and growth through their iridescently coloured oryxes.

"As I perceived the oryx as a symbol of the beauty of the Omani environment, I tried to depict the rhythm of nature through the flow of lines, colours and forms," said Mitra, an art teacher residing in Muscat, of his oryx design, which incorporates plants, flowers, birds and human beings.

"I essentially wished to share the beauty of sunlight and the joy of living in Oman through my oryx," he added, referring to the radiant gold, orange and yellow hues permeating the surface of his oryx, which was also studded with crystals.

Many manifestations of nature

Gujarat-based Jitendra Baoni heard of the oryx project through the internet and found it in alignment with a personal project he had been working on, a series on musk deer. For the oryx project, he sought inspiration in the poetry of the renowned Hindi poet, Kabir Das. "I was working on the theme of searching within [oneself]," he says, referring to his turquoise and yellow oryx depicting nature in its multiple manifestations: ocean, forest, flora and fauna.

Apart from enthusing about participating in a project with such novel dimensions, the artists also expressed their satisfaction at being part of an initiative that allowed them to represent the oryx's beauty and grace through individual modes of artistic expression, thus creating an alternative and highly visible manner of raising awareness about this elemental symbol of Arabian environmental heritage.

- Priyanka Sacheti is a journalist based in Muscat.