Fadwa Al-Shehri: An artist who paints with knife

She paints with a knife and excels in it, and places in her paintings touches of the Hijazi and Asiri heritage. She also provided childhood letters, roses and peace.
She told Arab News that painting is a talent she has since childhood, she has developed it through personal study and extensive art culture.
Since her childhood she had a need to express herself, and since she was silent, she did not find a need to express through language, but she had found it in painting. “I wish I could achieve what I dream of doing now, it is worth to be achieved, because the artist is looking all his life for something that is tangible, just like a dream and this dream must come one day in a beautiful canvas,” she said.
She has tried to develop her talent with determination and through exploring international exhibitions and participation in local exhibitions in various parts of the Kingdom with the aim of meeting local, Arab and international artists.
Al-Shehri said, “In my art letters, I spontaneously aim to depict childhood, innocence and transparency. So you will find in my paintings under this title a sense of harmony between the feeling, the picture and light.
It is an aesthetic relationship that stems from the aspects of art and culture, and we can say that the emotions and suggestive and impressionistic effects in my works interfere with all its elements.”
Al-Shehri added, “Painting in my opinion is similar to poetry and writing; it is the translation of what is reserved in the feelings and understood by the mind. It is a tool for expression and an important, smooth tool to convey the concept through symbols and art forms, meaning that it is a color language that simulates the sensation directly. The painting is a situation that reflects the reality and pain of the human being, as is poetry through word and letters.”
“Painting addresses the human whatever his/her cultural level, and the pen addresses only those who know how to read. The pen is the most widely used tool of expression, and illiteracy is still widely spread in the community. Painting needs a special place to be displayed and presented to all classes in society.”
She continued, “A painting to me is a question or an answer to a question. From a personal point of view, I think it is objective and positive, it is also a lesson in its birth time given the circumstance surrounding it.
While there are different methods of art, just like of music as well as visual arts, including fine art, the media plays a big role in the audience’s feelings regarding the artwork, she said.
As an artist, she represents through her paintings images of Hijazi heritage, in which she explains the beauty of Al-Rawachin, ancient yards and alleyways and the wealth of the beautiful heritage, where she highlights the details and features of the place.
She also loves to paint roses and flowers, they are characterized by their softness and beautiful colors and sensations that gives the viewer comfort and tranquility.
“I like to paint flowers of different types of schools, abstraction, impressionism, sympathetic and realistic.
It is natural that each canvas has its own meanings, which expose and deal with many issues, because the attempts by each artist during the accomplishment of the artwork have a certain goal, and express his/her concept and his/her style and content of the painting and the message he/she wants to deliver to the recipient,” she explained.
Al-Shehri continued, “In every work of art in the knife technique, there are key elements and secondary or marginal elements, and art schools differ about this topic.
For example, in my works, there is always a subject that requires to highlight the presence of main components and other secondary components, and what applies to the subject applies to all kinds of painting material.
Painting production with knife according to each art school or trends is subject to complicated terms: First, expressive, formalism eloquence in the artist, which is the method technique and clarity of the goal.
Painting with the knife is characterized by lightness and vitality and its impact on the receiver makes him/her feel that the colors are pure and prominent and shows the beauty of the concept and content.
The artist can innovate in this area if the artist is skilled and loves painting and his/her read of colors is excellent. Then, he/she is inspired by the beauty of the idea from the strikes of the knife and the integration of colors, and represents the painting in its most beautiful image.
“Given the quality of my work, I can say that I belong to the expressive, effective impressionistic school after seeing most art schools and after researching and studying in my old artworks, I found this school is the closest to myself, what is in my mind from feelings and ideas, and I invested it my way, I have combined modernity with heritage.
The influential impressionism school is interested in expressing reflections in nature and leaving the impact of the brush or its clear touches on the canvas, without erasing the colors or merging them. The works of this school are characterized by the lightness and vitality and interest in shadows and showing them in artworks and neglecting external lines that identify the forms, the flatness and distance from the perspective of the embodiment of the three-dimensions.
The artist said, “My love and passion for painting is a talent from God and I find my comfort when I inspire an idea of my life. I gather the circumstances of time and place in an idea and I paint it with my feelings. My need for painting is like my need for breathing, and without it I cannot live.
I am pleased that I brought the sense of art and my creations to anyone interested in art and looks for beauty and awaits more of my work. Let artists, sculptors, intellectuals and lovers of art and beauty look at the beauty of my paintings.”
About the reluctance of a number of artists to sign their names on the paintings for fear of society’s perception Al-Shehri said, “Our society still adheres to backward habits, ignorant ideas, and wants to restrict the culture and knowledge of religion in women through the denial of their personal rights in the name of religion, while the religion is the source of beauty, art and taste.
The name of the woman does not shame her reputation and honor as some ignorants think! Her name graces her.”
She stresses that academic study supports artists and polishes their talent and makes them excel in a specific school and a certain style. After that comes the practice of painting and knowing all kinds of schools, how to read the colors and their knowledge of all the colors of oil and acrylic types.
Academic study is important in terms of learning the basics of painting to have the right start in the world of fine arts.
Al-Shehri said she has achieved much success and excellence through insistence and her desire to be an artist that imposes art and creativity all around her, as well as by attending and participating in art exhibitions across the Kingdom and outside the Kingdom. The top school that Saudi artists are directing to is the realistic school, which comprises representing the artwork realistically and closer to reality, in addition to surrealism and abstractionism schools.
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