QNA
Doha
The cultural and artistic projects put forward by the State of Qatar institutions concerned with creativity awarded Qatari female fine artists a spacious place to unleash their talents and contribute to the reconstruction of society, life, and the surrounding with various forms of art, schools, and contemporary trends. Qatar Museums, Msheireb Museums, the Public Works Authority (Ashghal), and the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy presented initiatives that absorbed the creativity of the Qatari artists and employed it to serve the country and its society.
Thus, the Qatari female fine artist succeeded in raising creativity to global heights through creative participation in exhibitions and festivals at home and abroad, and in various artistic and cultural initiatives as part of the preparations to receive Qatars guests for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, with the aesthetics of the art that made Qatar an open museum in preparation for the tournament.
To shed light on the position of the female fine artist in the cultural scene and future ambitions, and the role of art to keep up with the societal, cultural, local, and humanitarian transformation, Qatari artists explained to Qatar News Agency (QNA) that Qatar and the Gulf's cultural and societal heritage represents a fountain of inspiration for their aesthetic vision, just as the rhythm of reality, its challenges and questions, are stimuli to express the spirit of this age and its issues through art.
The pioneering fine artist Wafika Sultan Al Essa represents a role model in drawing inspiration and highlighting Qatari folklore through her well-known and distinguished creative experience at the level of the Gulf, the Arab world, and at the international level, where her experience has distinguished itself since its inception in the early 1970s. She is the first artist to practice fine arts in Qatar, and one of the first Qatari women to study art academically and specialize in it professionally, after obtaining a bachelor's degree in applied arts from Cairo University.
In her creative works, Al Essa was inspired by her cultural heritage, including motifs, stories and songs. Her paintings reflected Qataris' relationship with the sea and the fishing traditions that began to disappear after the boom of the oil industry, in addition to her use of Islamic decorative arts and the aesthetics of Arabic script in an experimental framework. She has participated in many local, Arab and international exhibitions, where her works were shown in Morocco, Kuwait, Tunisia, Paris and London, and in the permanent exhibition of the Arab Museum of Modern Art. In 2014, she was awarded the Arab Woman Award for best Qatari artist. She is currently participating in the Ruwad Artist programme organized by Qatar Museums at the Fire Station - the artists' residence.
Among her distinguished experiences, her participation in the artistic events of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 with the murals that adorn the city of Doha, and her artwork about the championship cup, as well as her paintings around the coastal heritage village of Al Mafjar, which Qatar Museums has designated a project to restore and preserve its architectural and decorative elements.
In an exclusive statement to QNA, Wafika Sultan confirmed that these actions and participations reflect her passion for local and Arab issues, and her expression of her identity that interacts with humanitarian issues, her love for beauty and her eagerness to express those meanings with her artistic tools and colors stored in her memory and derived from her heritage.
About her approach and style, Wafika Sultan said that she adopts an expressive style, and that all of her works are derived from her own environment full of beauty and intricate icons, such as the rich Gulf architecture with its white colors and elements, its relationship to the sea, the golden desert sands, its magnificent palms, and the 'Sidr trees' with their beautiful greenery, and the charming nature of the blue sky and the sea with its wide horizon. In addition to her keenness to employ the aesthetics of Gulf ornaments and fashion in their bright colors. She also uses the formation of her paintings by drawing lines and Islamic Arab motifs.
She asserts that her academic studies of art have reinforced her method of continuous research and experimentation in the various stages of the development of her fine career, and the way she seeks to achieve her own style and artistic personality by integrating colors and balanced lines on the surface of the canvas to formulate expressive and abstract content in a modern style.
Artist Wafika Sultan sums up her experience, her message and her philosophy in art at the conclusion of her statement to QNA that she believes in the role of fine art as a message in interacting with society, being excited by social and political events, and spreading optimism and beauty. She says that art for her represents an honest measure of expressing her innermost and her visions, and that painting is the summary of her experiences in life, her love for beauty and her search for it, as well as her passion for artistic expression through brush and colors, and that love makes history and is the strongest motive for the creator and artist.