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| Small Boab tree, A5 sketchbook, ©Sue Pownall 2011 |
Summer has arrived in the Gulf, and according to my taxi driver - and they are the people who know - midday yesterday was 46°C. However, when I ventured out after 4pm it had cooled to 42°C, but that was still too hot to sketch outside, so I went to the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA). It is a beautiful building, and I have posted photos of it before like this
one over on my other blog.
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| Beautiful architectural detail inside MIA. |
I went specifically for the special exhibition
The Golden Age of Dutch Painting, which finishes 6th June, and it was amazing to stand less than a metre away from Rembrandt portraits and other great paintings. After I'd admired the paintings, I sat in the gloomy exhibition hall and sketched the other visitors viewing the paintings.
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| Viewing Dutch Masters, A5 sketchbook ©Sue Pownall 2011 |
Next, I investigated a couple of the exhibit rooms, heading first to the calligraphy, but then headed outside to warm up.
Note: Aircon is set to freezing here, so you need jumpers inside. Mathaf: Arab museum of modern art, has an extension building near MIA, so I walked across the garden to it. Amazingly, the temperature had dropped outside and when I spotted a beautifully architectural Boab tree I had to quickly record it - quickly because it was now sunset, and the cool was relative, so I couldn't stay outside too long. I love the looseness of my painting above and I am so looking forward to getting to Cuba (
94 days according to the counter above) with its Caribbean colours and vegetation.
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| Boab |
The Al-Riwaq Art Space looks like an aircraft hanger outside and is disparate against the beautiful gardens and building of MIA, however it has a great internal space for the two exhibitions
told/untold/retold and
interventions, both finishing at the end of this month. I am not a fan of video installations, however
Sadik Kwaish Alfraji's made me stop, sit down and watch it. Also, I finally saw the installation by
Lamia Joreige, whose talk I went to back in March, which I also liked and understood more for having attended the talk.
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| MIA from Al-Riwaq Art Space. |
What a fabulous arty day, both for viewing and creating, I need more days like this in my life!
