Sharjah 24: Abdullah Al Owais, Chairman of Sharjah Department of Culture (SDC), and Mohammed Ibrahim Al Qaseer, Director of the Cultural Affairs Department at the SDC, Director of the Islamic Arts Festival, inaugurated 4 works of art in the House of Wisdom and the Sharjah Research, Technology and Innovation Park (SRTIP), as part of the activities of the twenty-fourth session “Gradations”, in the presence of artists and media from different countries of the world.

The halls of the House of Wisdom hosted two artworks: “Amal” by the Yemeni artist Nasser Al Aswadi, and “Hilal” by the American artist Matt McConnell, and the Danish artist Pia Jensen, while SRTIP received two other works, namely: “City Scope” by German artist Marco Hemmerling (Studio SPADE), and Control, No Control by Canadian artist Daniel Irigi (Studio Iregular).

From the House of Wisdom to SRTIP, Al Owais, Al Qaseer and Al Hadhour visited the four artworks, whereas the artists’ creations were manifested through modern touches with modern innovative ideas, which highlighted the aesthetics of Islamic art by translating the slogan “gradations”, and the audience listened to detailed explanations from the artists on their artworks.

Nasser Al Aswadi focuses in his works on the geometric principles laid down by Plato and Arab philosophers, whereas the circle represents completion because it has no beginning and no end. The circle defines the extreme surface within a unique shape and enriches the painter’s work with discs, domes, semi-spheres, groups, and clouds. His letters are not placed on a straight line or horizontally, but rather stacked according to their dynamic density, or even superimposed on each other, but may even be intertwined and identical in a space that has become imaginary and abstract.

Artists Matt McConnell and Pia Jensen present joint artworks blending hexagon and spiral shapes based on geometric foundations, expressed in three waves wrapped in a geometric screen, each 12 meters long and 3 meters high, incorporating a series of scattered transparent shades of colour, to add colour to the piece and the landscape, with the sun on top of the work, a double shadow forms, creating ribbon-like shapes that add new layers to the work when viewed in full sunlight.