Painting Portraits
Join Emirati artist Hamad Al Shamsi on a journey to master the art of portrait painting. This class explores Hamad’s distinctive approach, which centers on preserving and reinterpreting feelings and emotions through a portraits. You will learn how to combine traditional craftsmanship with modern techniques to paint portraits that are not only visually striking, but also rich in cultural context and personal narrative.
Emirati Arts Movement
In this lesson, we host two of the most prominent pioneers of the fine arts movement in the United Arab Emirates, artist Abdulrahim Salem and Dr. Najat Makki, in a joint dialogue to explore their artistic beginnings, their rich journeys filled with achievements, and their influence on the Emirati art scene. The lesson will discuss the emergence of the fine arts movement, the role of the Emirates Fine Arts Society, and the challenges and opportunities faced by artists during that period. It will also highlight their artistic philosophies, sources of inspiration, and the evolution of their artistic styles, with a focus on their shared experience representing the UAE at international forums.
Draw With Your Senses
Mowaffag ElSadig is a self taught Sudanese artist whose practice begins with attention. For him, drawing is not only visual. It is physical, emotional, and intuitive. In this class, he shares the approach that shaped his own development, using the senses as a way to access presence, memory, and meaning. You will be guided through a way of working that slows you down, sharpens your awareness, and helps your drawings carry more life and character.
Art in 30 Minutes
Abdulrahim Salim is an Emirati prominent figure in the UAE visual art scene for decades. Born in Khorfakkan in 1955, his early relationship with the sea and mountains continues to echo through his work, where Emirati symbols meet emotion, memory, and human presence. In this class, he invites you to work with limits as a form of freedom, building a lighter relationship with making through speed, instinct, and repetition.
The Power of Printmaking
Diego Mendoza has spent his career moving between Mexico, Tanzania, Qatar, and the UAE, and printmaking has been the medium he keeps returning to. In this class, he walks you through the fundamentals of relief printmaking, from handling tools and carving your first block to applying ink to paper and understanding why the results are never quite the same twice. That unpredictability is part of what makes printmaking interesting to Diego, and he shows you how to work with it rather than against it. The class is taught in English and designed for beginners with no prior experience in printmaking.
Survival Through Painting
Carolin Semerjian is a Syrian Armenian artist who spent her life using painting to make sense of the world around her, influenced by the people, places, moments, and cultures she's moved through. In this class, she shares that practice with you. You'll work with oil paint to understand how colour, light, and shadow can carry emotional weight, not merely as technical elements but as choices that give a painting its feeling and meaning. Carolin draws on the tradition of dramatic light and shadow to show how layering darkness and light can bring depth and hope to a composition, and how the tension between warm and cool tones shapes what a viewer feels when they stand in front of your work. The class is taught in Arabic and is designed for painters with some experience who want to develop a more intentional, expressive approach to their practice.