Sitting in the lounge of her home in the bustling centre of old Dubai, Najat Makki searches for words to express how she feels about her art.
“It is like oxygen,” she says, a smile spreading over her face.
“Yes, art is more important to me than food and water. Some days, I can be so lost in my art that I will forget to eat and drink. No problem, that can come later, my art will always come first.”
One of the UAE’s foremost artists, Makki was the first Emirati woman to be granted a government scholarship in 1977 to study art abroad. She travelled to Cairo and obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in relief sculpture and metal.
When she returned, she began working for the Ministry of Education, conducting art workshops and teacher training. In 2000, she returned to Egypt to complete her doctorate in the philosophy of art.
She is also the only woman among 15 artists chosen to represent her country at this year’s Venice Biennale, where exhibition curator Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi picked five of her early sculptures to take pride of place. For Makki, the works represent the beginning of her career, an era that still holds great sentimental value.
“When I first came out of college I was in the experimental stage,” she says. “I was an emerging artist and I delved into different materials such as metal, wood and fibreglass. These sculptures are from that time.
“I was overjoyed to see the work showing in Venice, and now that these pieces have been exhibited on such an important international stage, they are even closer to my heart.”
Makki’s practice diverted away from sculpture early on in her career. She found her identity and her calling in painting and has been prolific in the medium ever since.
Her home studio is piled high with canvases, and her easel is almost always occupied with a continuing work, a palette of brightly coloured paints at its side.
Makki’s style is largely abstract but often features the female form. The textures and colours come from her childhood.
Born in Bur Dubai, Makki grew up beside the sea and its rich shades usually form the base of her paintings.
Her father owned a herbal medicine shop and her mother, who loved to make dresses from patterned material, taught her about colour and texture when she was still a child.
While a career in art was always her destiny, Makki believes it was the environment in the UAE in the 1980s that helped to shape it.
“It is significant that Sheikha Hoor chose this era of UAE art for the Venice exhibition,” she says.
“It was a very active time and most artists were taken under the wing of the Emirates Fine Arts Society, which really supported us.
“Later, when the Sharjah Biennial began, it gave a bigger chance for Emirati artists to be exposed, because they brought international artists who opened up our eyes to new artistic practices, which led to a beneficial shift within the art movement in UAE.
“The art we produced at that time was conceptually and philosophically sound and it was a decade of maturity for us all.”
As the only woman in the exhibition, Makki says she feels proud but insists that she was not the only woman practising.
“No, there were many others of course. I was just the lucky one who got selected.”
• 1980 – Today: Exhibitions in the UAE runs as part of the 56th Venice Biennale until November 22. Every Wednesday, A&L will profile each of the 15 artists showing their works in the UAE Pavilion at the Biennale, which runs until November 22
aseaman@thenational.ae
