“Every little stone on the ground is unique, and that’s kind of cool,” says artist Kamran Samimi. “Maybe we can stop and appreciate these small moments. Take the time to look around, take a breath, express gratitude. It's a lot of gratitude.”
Stone, earth, the land and, by extension, nature are integral elements for how Samimi sees the world and his place in it.
They are also tools and often the subject matter of his artistic practice.
His current show, titled Before Nature (I Am Both Created and Destroyed), at the upstairs space in The Third Line gallery at Alserkal Avenue, is a homage to a multitude of the self through stone.
Three large-scale paintings stand facing a series of stone sculptures and smaller paintings on the opposite wall. Swirling marks in earth tones move in a mass across the three large canvases.
Titled Translations, the paintings are map-like – raw and expressive as they depict a sense of rooted movement.
Samimi created the works in the three weeks leading up to the opening of the exhibition when he visited the UAE and took inspiration from the land's natural materials.
In the mountainous region of Wadi Shawka in Ras Al Khaimah, Samimi draped pieces of canvas on four particular stones that spoke to him.
“It's a process of translation and interpreting the story told by the stones,” he tells The National.
“Wadi Shawka is a very arid, rocky landscape. And it was just so rich. I was overwhelmed with the sort of subtle beauty of those ancient stones.”
He then the rubbed the surface of the canvas with oil sticks, instinctually choosing which colours to use while moving around the canvas and the stone.
“It’s a very physical process and in a way, I think of it as almost like an active meditation,” he adds.
“I'm in this state where I'm communicating and listening and observing and translating these stories and thoughts, but it's super physical. I'm running around the stones – I don't start in one place and then work my way up. It's sort of all over, in phases.”
Samimi’s marking on the canvas through the stone's face was not only a way to create a form of dialogue between himself and the land, but to also connect himself to something deeper and more personal.
“It was not just to speak with the stones and hear the stories told by them, but also a chance to connect with my ancestry from the region as I had never been to Iran and that was the closest that I've ever come to that place,” Samimi says.
Samimi’s affinity with the concept of land and ancestors is intertwined with his experiences growing up as an Iranian-Norwegian in the Hawaiian countryside.
From his lighter skin colour to his name, Samimi didn't feel that he fit in physically or socially in Hawaii. However, time spent in nature with his family, visiting volcanoes or collecting stones with his father, extended a greater sense of belonging to Samimi.
“I felt like the natural world was a place that I could belong," he says. "That world accepted me for who I was, and I was free to be myself and explore and experience."
Samimi’s sculptural stone works, most of them basalt stones from Hawaii, are also stunning. Like his paintings, they are rooted but also push against notions of gravity.
The stones are cut with precision and the artist elaborates that he shears off a piece of a stone or cuts into it and then mends it back together in a slightly different way. He then coats it with indigo pigment or gold leaf, like a healing process or to "anoint the stone". It's a means to honour the interior space, the energy within the stone that he has now revealed to the world.
While the visual contrast between the gold and the natural surface of the basalt stone is striking, there is also a commentary in the pieces connected to the idea of value – in particular to the concept of how we perceive everything around us as a resource for consumption.
Gold, for example has significant history throughout the human story. And for Saimimi combining a highly valuable material with a very common stone is pointing to the value system humanity has cultivated over time.
“The contrast of resources and how we interact with our world and how we manage what we find, brings up the question of what is worthwhile and that which is worthless,” he says.
“To me, the basalt stone is the more valuable, the gold you can buy it from the store. Because that stone there's only one of those that exists. And so that's priceless.”
Kamran Samimi’s Before Nature (I Am Both Created and Destroyed) at The Third Line gallery at Alserkal Avenue is on until Friday
T20 WORLD CUP QUALIFIER
Results
UAE beat Nigeria by five wickets
Hong Kong beat Canada by 32 runs
Friday fixtures
10am, Tolerance Oval, Abu Dhabi – Ireland v Jersey
7.30pm, Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi – Canada v Oman
Infiniti QX80 specs
Engine: twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6
Power: 450hp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: From Dh450,000, Autograph model from Dh510,000
Available: Now
Other acts on the Jazz Garden bill
Sharrie Williams
The American singer is hugely respected in blues circles due to her passionate vocals and songwriting. Born and raised in Michigan, Williams began recording and touring as a teenage gospel singer. Her career took off with the blues band The Wiseguys. Such was the acclaim of their live shows that they toured throughout Europe and in Africa. As a solo artist, Williams has also collaborated with the likes of the late Dizzy Gillespie, Van Morrison and Mavis Staples.
Lin Rountree
An accomplished smooth jazz artist who blends his chilled approach with R‘n’B. Trained at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC, Rountree formed his own band in 2004. He has also recorded with the likes of Kem, Dwele and Conya Doss. He comes to Dubai on the back of his new single Pass The Groove, from his forthcoming 2018 album Stronger Still, which may follow his five previous solo albums in cracking the top 10 of the US jazz charts.
Anita Williams
Dubai-based singer Anita Williams will open the night with a set of covers and swing, jazz and blues standards that made her an in-demand singer across the emirate. The Irish singer has been performing in Dubai since 2008 at venues such as MusicHall and Voda Bar. Her Jazz Garden appearance is career highlight as she will use the event to perform the original song Big Blue Eyes, the single from her debut solo album, due for release soon.
La Mer lowdown
La Mer beach is open from 10am until midnight, daily, and is located in Jumeirah 1, well after Kite Beach. Some restaurants, like Cupagahwa, are open from 8am for breakfast; most others start at noon. At the time of writing, we noticed that signs for Vicolo, an Italian eatery, and Kaftan, a Turkish restaurant, indicated that these two restaurants will be open soon, most likely this month. Parking is available, as well as a Dh100 all-day valet option or a Dh50 valet service if you’re just stopping by for a few hours.
Honeymoonish
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Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
The Vines - In Miracle Land
Two stars
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Barbie
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BANGLADESH SQUAD
Mashrafe Mortaza (captain), Tamim Iqbal, Liton Das, Soumya Sarkar, Mushfiqur Rahim (wicketkeeper), Mahmudullah, Shakib Al Hasan (vice captain), Mohammad Mithun, Sabbir Rahaman, Mosaddek Hossain, Mohammad Saifuddin, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Rubel Hossain, Mustafizur Rahman, Abu Jayed (Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)
MATCH INFO
Crawley Town 3 (Tsaroulla 50', Nadesan 53', Tunnicliffe 70')
Leeds United 0
World record transfers
1. Kylian Mbappe - to Real Madrid in 2017/18 - €180 million (Dh770.4m - if a deal goes through)
2. Paul Pogba - to Manchester United in 2016/17 - €105m
3. Gareth Bale - to Real Madrid in 2013/14 - €101m
4. Cristiano Ronaldo - to Real Madrid in 2009/10 - €94m
5. Gonzalo Higuain - to Juventus in 2016/17 - €90m
6. Neymar - to Barcelona in 2013/14 - €88.2m
7. Romelu Lukaku - to Manchester United in 2017/18 - €84.7m
8. Luis Suarez - to Barcelona in 2014/15 - €81.72m
9. Angel di Maria - to Manchester United in 2014/15 - €75m
10. James Rodriguez - to Real Madrid in 2014/15 - €75m
more from Janine di Giovanni
MATCH INFO
Schalke 0
Werder Bremen 1 (Bittencourt 32')
Man of the match Leonardo Bittencourt (Werder Bremen)
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
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