The paintings featured in the 50 for 50 auction have been created by Grammy-nominated composer Ella Spira. Sisters Grimm
The paintings featured in the 50 for 50 auction have been created by Grammy-nominated composer Ella Spira. Sisters Grimm
The paintings featured in the 50 for 50 auction have been created by Grammy-nominated composer Ella Spira. Sisters Grimm
The paintings featured in the 50 for 50 auction have been created by Grammy-nominated composer Ella Spira. Sisters Grimm

Sisters Grimm to auction 50 artworks created in the UAE to mark the country's golden jubilee


Razmig Bedirian
  • English
  • Arabic

Grammy-nominated composer and Sisters Grimm founder Ella Spira will be auctioning off a collection of 50 UAE landscape paintings in a bid to boost a performing arts programme along with regional art initiatives.

The auction, called 50 for 50, will mark the UAE's golden jubilee and will showcase the paintings Spira created as a result of her travels across the country.

Sisters Grimm, the Dubai production company Spira founded with ballerina Pietra De Mello-Pittman in 2009, is also dropping its first non-fungible token (NFT) artwork. The work celebrates the diversity of the seven emirates.

NFT artworks have made headlines recently after Christie's sold Everydays: The First 5000 Days, a work by artist Beeple, for a whopping $69.4 million, making it the first NFT artwork to be sold by a major auction house. NFTs are digital certificates that authenticate ownership through blockchain technology. NFTs can come in the form of drawings, music, video or other digital media, even tweets, memes, online articles or podcasts. The NFT exists on the blockchain, where it cannot be copied or manipulated.

The majority of the proceeds of both the Sisters Grimm NFT drop and the 50 for 50 art auction will go to the Pietra and Ella Theatre Production Shows UAE company, which is developing the Sisters Grimm Performing Arts Programme that aims to bolster art initiatives for youth in the region.

This is far from the first UAE-inspired project Sisters Grimm has launched.

In 2020, it released United, a song written for UAE National Day by Spira and DB Gad, featuring the vocals of Emirati singer Shamma Hamdan, Don Abdullah and Madyan Hamza. Its video has more than three million views on YouTube.

Earlier in March, the duo released a new song and music video, Windows of the Mind, featuring artworks by children across the UAE. The project came after Sisters Grimm released its "Covid-conscious" digital initiative UAE Art in Nature, giving young people aged 5 to 18 the chance to get involved with Sisters Grimm's work, and to channel their creativity while engaging with nature. It was supported by Dubai's Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA).

The self-funded project received more than 1,000 artistic submissions from more than 100 schools across the UAE, and these have been turned into 3D imagery used in the video for new single Windows of the Mind, which features the vocals of Madyan Hamza, who sings in Arabic, and DB Gad in English.

THE BIO

Born: Mukalla, Yemen, 1979

Education: UAE University, Al Ain

Family: Married with two daughters: Asayel, 7, and Sara, 6

Favourite piece of music: Horse Dance by Naseer Shamma

Favourite book: Science and geology

Favourite place to travel to: Washington DC

Best advice you’ve ever been given: If you have a dream, you have to believe it, then you will see it.

Dark Souls: Remastered
Developer: From Software (remaster by QLOC)
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Price: Dh199

Green ambitions
  • Trees: 1,500 to be planted, replacing 300 felled ones, with veteran oaks protected
  • Lake: Brown's centrepiece to be cleaned of silt that makes it as shallow as 2.5cm
  • Biodiversity: Bat cave to be added and habitats designed for kingfishers and little grebes
  • Flood risk: Longer grass, deeper lake, restored ponds and absorbent paths all meant to siphon off water 
Company%20profile
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The biog

Name: Marie Byrne

Nationality: Irish

Favourite film: The Shawshank Redemption

Book: Seagull by Jonathan Livingston

Life lesson: A person is not old until regret takes the place of their dreams

Babumoshai Bandookbaaz

Director: Kushan Nandy

Starring: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Bidita Bag, Jatin Goswami

Three stars

The specs

Engine: 5.0-litre V8

Power: 480hp at 7,250rpm

Torque: 566Nm at 4,600rpm

Transmission: 10-speed auto

Fuel consumption: L/100km

Price: Dh306,495

On sale: now

If you go...

Etihad Airways flies from Abu Dhabi to Kuala Lumpur, from about Dh3,600. Air Asia currently flies from Kuala Lumpur to Terengganu, with Berjaya Hotels & Resorts planning to launch direct chartered flights to Redang Island in the near future. Rooms at The Taaras Beach and Spa Resort start from 680RM (Dh597).

PROFILE

Name: Enhance Fitness 

Year started: 2018 

Based: UAE 

Employees: 200 

Amount raised: $3m 

Investors: Global Ventures and angel investors 

TECH%20SPECS%3A%20APPLE%20IPHONE%2014%20PLUS
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Aldar Properties Abu Dhabi T10

*November 15 to November 24

*Venue: Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi

*Tickets: Start at Dh10, from ttensports.com

*TV: Ten Sports

*Streaming: Jio Live

*2017 winners: Kerala Kings

*2018 winners: Northern Warriors

23-man shortlist for next six Hall of Fame inductees

Tony Adams, David Beckham, Dennis Bergkamp, Sol Campbell, Eric Cantona, Andrew Cole, Ashley Cole, Didier Drogba, Les Ferdinand, Rio Ferdinand, Robbie Fowler, Steven Gerrard, Roy Keane, Frank Lampard, Matt Le Tissier, Michael Owen, Peter Schmeichel, Paul Scholes, John Terry, Robin van Persie, Nemanja Vidic, Patrick Viera, Ian Wright.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA

Starring: Nader Abd Alhay, Majd Eid, Ramzi Maqdisi

Directors: Tarzan and Arab Nasser

Rating: 4.5/5

The specs

Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo

Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm

Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm

Transmission: 9-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km

On sale: Now

Price: From Dh117,059

The%20specs
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Gorillaz 
The Now Now 

The specs

Engine: 4.0-litre, six-cylinder

Transmission: six-speed manual

Power: 395bhp

Torque: 420Nm

Price: from Dh321,200

On sale: now

SPECS
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%202-litre%20direct%20injection%20turbo%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETransmission%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%207-speed%20automatic%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%20261hp%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%20400Nm%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%20From%20Dh134%2C999%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
THE SIXTH SENSE

Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Rating: 5/5

MATCH INFO

Uefa Champions League semi-final, second leg
Real Madrid (2) v Bayern Munich (1)

Where: Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid
When: 10.45pm, Tuesday
Watch Live: beIN Sports HD

Married Malala

Malala Yousafzai is enjoying married life, her father said.

The 24-year-old married Pakistan cricket executive Asser Malik last year in a small ceremony in the UK.

Ziauddin Yousafzai told The National his daughter was ‘very happy’ with her husband.

THE SPECS

2020 Toyota Corolla Hybrid LE

Engine: 1.8 litre combined with 16-volt electric motors

Transmission: Automatic with manual shifting mode

Power: 121hp

Torque: 142Nm

Price: Dh95,900