Saudi Arabia
Portraiture, Still-life, Landscape, Murals, Itinerant Portraitist, Old Master, Oil painting, Self-Portraits, Children's Portraiture, Yale, Yale Portraits, Davenport College, Davenport College Portraits, Sterling Memorial Library, Sterling Memorial Library Portraits, Women Artists, Women Artists NY, Women Artists USA, Contemporary Portraiture, Contemporary Painting, Multidisciplinary Artist, Installation Art, Artistic Activism, Public Art, Documentary Film, Documentary Film Award Winner, Mural Artist, Animal Portraits, Snakes, Snakes Portraits, Glass Sculpture, Drawing, Art Drawings, Commissioned Artwork, Saudi Arabia Art, Saudia Arabia Art Installation
Saudi Arabia
On February 20, 2019, 43 artists from 31 countries arrived in a remote desert location 150 kilometers from Riyadh as the finishing touches were being put on a 250-million-dollar extravaganza: the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival. We were invited to make camel art in a one-month “artist residency” during the world’s largest camel festival, held annually under the patronage of King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. While in residence, the artists lived and worked in a temporary settlement of two enormous tents—one for men and one for women, with a giant field in between. We were on display for a constant stream (35,000 people per day) of Saudi and foreign visitors, who interacted with us as we worked. The center of the festival was the much-lauded camel race and the camel beauty contest. Before beginning to make the camel art, the artists were taken even deeper into the desert to visit with elite camel herders and receive rigorous instruction on the aesthetic attributes of a beautiful camel. We were strictly discouraged from painting camels until these lessons were absorbed. I think of myself as a quick learner with a keen eye for beauty (or maybe I’m just lucky), but the camel I selected to paint went on to win the beauty contest. I painted her on a large canvas that also included a portrait of her owner (all beauty contest camels are females; male camels are dinner). The numerous photos of people posing with my painting circulated on Snapchat and Instagram, and the intensified interest in my work encouraged a throng of willing portrait subjects. I also painted an ambitious oil painting of a Sudanese camel handler, a person at the bottom of the Saudi economic hierarchy, with equal dignity and beauty, inciting important conversations about social status among Saudi visitors.
King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, February 18 – March 19, 2019
