Out of Kuwait

The exhibition was the outcome of a two year project, involving a residency programme designed and delivered by Professor David Rayson with the support of the British Council in Kuwait, and culminated in the UK debut show of 13 emerging Kuwait artists who all work in a direct response to living in Kuwait and their work explores the Kuwait landscape in its broadest and most expansive sense. Through a wide variety of means these artists are excavating Kuwait’s social, economic and cultural identity, along with their own interpersonal relationship to the Kuwait’s very particular history. This exciting young group of Kuwait artists utilise a broad range of traditional and contemporary materials and processes, which reflects their relationship to the historic, the contemporary, and future technologies, which directly informs these artists many modes of working and will be represented and witnessed in the exhibition. As many of the works in the exhibition show, for lots of these young artists it is also the landscape as remembered, the managed and the maintained present, and the projections of the future landscape. This is the culmination of a large group of Kuwait artists working with the British Council, The Royal College of Art and Kuwait’s Contemporary Art Platform through a series of residency seminars and presentations organised by the international curator Alia Farid Abdal a graduate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Professor David Rayson, Head of Painting at the Royal College of Art being supported by three MA students from the RCA’s Painting programme. As artists and key cultural figures are beginning to explore the possibilities of figuring the landscape in contemporary terms as a vernacular and politicised space, these artists are at the forefront of a new generation of artists who’s practice is being supported by contemporary research, and will not only have an impact upon the artistic positioning of the emerging art scene emanating from the Middle East, but also the nature of art education within the region. The exhibition includes an illustrated publication with texts by the British Council’s Andrew Glass, Aseel Al Yaqoub one of the artists in the exhibition, and an essay by Professor David Rayson. Artists: Mohammed Al-Kouh, Ahmad Alshammeri, Adel Ashkanani, Thuraya Lynn, Mona Al-Qanai, Nima Algoo, Aziz Alhumaidhi, Zahra Al-Mahdi, Roa AlShaheen, Aseel Al Yaqoub, Amani Althuwaini, Mohammed R.Sharaf, Muneera Alsharhan