Inspiration through Colours
Anyone who has seen Ella Prakash’s fabulous paintings can tell that the artist has the capacity to transform a canvas into a magic carpet ride, transporting you to a world or era beyond your imagination.

Through her technique and colours, Ella injects life into her characters, often leaving you spellbound and even inspiring you enough to take up art.

Whether it’s infusing feelings or giving geometry an interesting dimension, her art is captivating and progressive. This versatile Manama-born artist, who works in acrylics, pastel, charcoal, oil paint and watercolour, calls her latest effort ‘Inspiration Through Colours.’

With Bahrain serving as food for thought, Ella lets her abstract canvas do the talking, outlining patterns of colour, shape and design. “The approach in this exhibition is to show Bahrain in a new concept of colours. It’s portraying the country’s past as well as contemporary settings,” said the artist.

She particularly talks of two techniques she’s employed — geometrical shapes to lend an abstract effect, and loose brush strokes that render fulfillment. “It’s a new technique that I worked on evolving and I’m glad the results have shown well,” she said.

The three-day exhibition will kick off at her gallery (Ella Art Gallery) from May 8 to 10, and will include fine art as well as abstracts.
For information, call 3 9073-299.

Words and Alphabets
Albareh Art Gallery is holding its 3rd Annual calligraphy exhibition from May 12 to 21, which is considered to be one of the region’s foremost calligraphy events. Entitled ‘Words and Alphabets’, the exhibits are devoted to the works of renowned artists from across the Arab world who tend sometimes to use the Arabic alphabets and words within the context of their paintings.

Artists participating in this calligraphy festival are Abbas Yousif, Abdul Elah AlArab and Jamal Abdul Rahim from Bahrain, and will include Moroccan artists Hakim Ghazali and Abdulla Hariri, as well as Ahmed Moualla from Syria and Iraqi artist Hassan Massoudi.

Tunisia’s Khaled Ben Slimane and Egypt’s Mohamed Abla will also leave their artistic imprints at this gala exhibition.

The event is aimed at demonstrating the beauty of the Arabic alphabet, and to showcase the different styles of incorporating the word and the alphabet within the canvas.
For information, call 17 717-707.

Miniatures
Saudi artist Zahra Bu Ali challenges the norms to do something that she believes is creatively fulfilling. Exhibiting her artworks at the Bahrain Arts Society from May 20, she calls her venture ‘Miniatures’, which, according to her, relates to two aspects of her aesthetic experience during the last few years.

“The first is the way I tended to work, with small size paintings, etchings and prints, and sculptures. The second was my focused vision on miniatures and the vast world and space that can be created and experienced within them,” she explained. “Even when I worked on large-scale works, I still dealt with them as miniatures.”

Through this exhibition she hopes viewers will walk through the exhibition discovering other levels that relate to the human presence and experience.

To include works in oil on canvas and paper, acrylics on paper, etching and printing from zinc, copper, wood, and multimedia works, the exhibition will also display small-scale sculptures as well as a large-scale multimedia one. In addition, a hand made artist book with etchings and prints will also be available.

Seeking inspiration from the very minute, she states that her memory and subconscious do a great job at selecting, piling and connecting together things, events and life experiences. “My artistic vision continues to search deeply into the human existence and experiences at different places and eras, and how my own existence relates to it,” she observes.
For information, call 17 590-562.