Instagram: @mazoun_alghailani
Art has grown tremendously over the years. The rise of contemporary art as a genre has paved the way for new voices to take the spotlight and be recognised for their originality and authenticity.
Despite the different branches of art opening better opportunities for artists, classic, realistic painter Ahmed al Hajri stuck with what he knows best tackling different social themes in his growing collection of paintings.
Ahmed has a Bachelor of Arts in Education from Sultan Qaboos University, has worked as an art teacher and is currently an educational supervisor for the arts.
“I drew most of the animals I saw on documentaries, but some other animals had a special place for me, and that love grew as I also become mature. I think it’s where my love for drawing horses and especially the Arabian horses started,” Ahmed said.
Across his more than two dozens of paintings, Ahmed has showcased childhood, desert life, Arabian horses, customs, traditions and portrait.
He paints scenes that showcase the nobility of the Omani heritage. That is why horses became a common theme amongst his work because it is one of the animals associated with the Omani heritage and to the authentic identity of the Omanis as individuals.
In looking at Ahmed’s paintings, it’s impossible not to notice the details.
“In the realistic classical artistic style that I follow, the subtle details cannot be overlooked or ignored. Every detail, no matter how small, adds aesthetic value and visual pleasure, and a great addition to the overall of the artwork,” he said. His paintings on horses included all the tiny details that distinguish the Arabian horse from others.
“One of the difficulties that I faced, in the beginning, was to show anthropomorphism of the muscles and the body of the horse, as it needs a high concentration and a thoughtful touch to show the three-dimensional muscles in a stylised manner. I think that I have reached a good stage of mastery in this aspect,” he added.
As for the historical or tourist attraction in Oman, he said, “I have always been a lover of history and a reader of it to the extent that I knew the history of Oman and its epics and its great men. My love for the heritage and greatness of this country increased. The details of the Omani cultural heritage are interesting and rich, and have a visual pleasure that you do not realise unless you bring up the history, its stories and epics, which give it prestige and greatness,” he shared.
Artist Ahmed’s path to creating a painting begins with an idea. Then he visualises the artistic composition of the painting. The next step is taking a large group of photographs of the required composition, after that he sorts and collects the elements of the painting, and drawing a miniature sketch of the artistic composition that expresses the first idea, and then he draws, plans and colours the work.
“Sometimes there may be cooperation between me and a professional photographer. I tend to collaborate with photographers when I see the photos they capture reminiscent of my label,” he said.
Sone of the unforgettable paintings by Ahmed are the “Haneen” (nostalgia) and “Twooq” (longing) paintings.
“The reason lies in the lazy and happy look that is full of nostalgia and longing, as the work documents an authentic Omani custom called “alkhotot” (the lines) in the Wilayat of Bidiya and known in some other wilayats as Al Mahlab wa safran, which is a mixture of saffron, sandal and alwaras used to decorate the face of women. But this artwork went beyond documenting the habit to catching the poetic moment of the charming look of the girls,” he explained.
From his point of view, realist art can be freed from the constraints of reality, but at the same time it always conveys the details of this reality, it allows the artist’s imagination to place a special imprint that carries a hidden message between the folds of the painting.
“The field of portrait needs a lot of serious studies, starting from understanding the shape of the human skull and then studying the anatomical aspect and building muscles above the skull, and ending with controlling the proportions of the face. As well as studying each part of the face separately,” he shared.
“Then comes the colouring stage, which is the most difficult stage because it needs accurate sensing of all the shades in the face, in which the artist uses most colours of various degrees, and here is the need to understand the colour circle in-depth,” he said.
He pointed out that the process of painting the portrait according to the method that he follows is on three colour layers, each layer is an independent stage that has its own rules and brushes.
“I spend around a month to 6 months in each portrait and this depends on the size of the portrait, the number of elements in it, and the quality of the details that it contains,” he said.
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