Earlier this year, Salem Al Mansoori won an art competition that earned him a trip to the Van Cleef & Arpels school in Paris and a show in Dubai. <span class="s1">Anna Seaman </span>meets the designer <span class="s2">He is educated in computer engineering and works in telecommunications, but his mathematical mindset and a self-confessed obsession with aesthetics has led Salem Al Mansoori into the world of design and visual art.</span> <span class="s2">“I love the rationality of engineering and I used to think that art was completely without any rules, which is OK but it is not for me, I enjoy things that are more structural.”</span> <span class="s2">Nevertheless, he started experimenting with mathematical codes and applied them to a visual format and he is slowly but surely emerging as an artist in his own right.</span> <span class="s2"><em>Collective Narrative</em>, his first exhibited piece, was in the 28th annual exhibition of the Emirates Fine Art Society in 2009. It was a computer programme that harvested tweets to make coherent, three-line stories, and his second work, <em>Pattern Systems</em>, was in the first edition of <em>Mind in 2010</em>, which was curated by Ebtisam Abdul Aziz at the Dubai Community Theatre & Arts Centre.</span> <span class="s2">But somewhat of a shy character and not yet believing in himself as an artist, Al Mansoori returned to the comfort of academia and immersed himself in an MBA for the next two years.</span> <span class="s2">It was only when he completed that and had spare time on his hands that he rekindled his passion for art.</span> <span class="s2">“I started an Instagram account and began to photograph architecture and do meaningless things and I also started to work with weird 3-D shapes.”</span> <span class="s2">Then, in 2012, his last minute application to Design Road Professional, a series of workshops in Dubai, London and Barcelona, was accepted and Al Mansoori was surrounded by professionals and was immersed in experimenting with his art.</span> <span class="s2">“It was so inspiring. We visited so many designers and we got on so well as a group. It was amazing. The best thing was that it pushed me to work on my 3-D aesthetics.”</span> <span class="s2">Al Mansoori had a table at Design Days Dubai in March and he also submitted a proposal for the forthcoming exhibition at Tashkeel called <em>Metamorphosis</em>. “The first thing I thought about when I heard this theme was a butterfly and the life cycle, so I imitated that with my shapes. I started with a basic 3-D shape and then made it more complex through different stages.”</span> <span class="s2">Not only was Al Mansoori’s work accepted for the competition, which was launched by Van Cleef & Arpels in collaboration with Tashkeel and Design Days Dubai, but his was declared the winning entry.</span> <span class="s2">As a prize, his work was showcased on the Van Cleef & Arpels platform at Design Days Dubai and he won a trip to Paris to visit L’Ecole Van Cleef & Arpels, a school of jewellery located on La Place Vendôme in an 18th-century townhome. </span> <span class="s2">Returning earlier this month, Al Mansoori says the trip was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. He took classes in jewellery design, art history and learnt how to work with gemstones. </span> <span class="s2">“I wasn’t expecting to be able to get much from the classes because it is not really my thing, but surprisingly, I really enjoyed them. The instructors were excellent and the classes were really well -structured.”</span> <span class="s2">Al Mansoori also says that although he never imagined himself in that field, he saw potential in jewellery design.</span> <span class="s2">“It widened my horizons and gave me a taste of a different field,” he says. “In the end, I saw it as another design problem I could solve. Since I got back, I am obsessed with rings and I am thinking about doing a collection along those lines.</span> <span class="s2">“The good thing about jewellery design is that it is not completely the creative side of art and not completely the structural side of design. I also see myself as somewhere in-between these two fields, so I found the trip a really interesting experience.”</span> <span class="s3"><a href="mailto:aseaman@thenational.ae">aseaman@thenational.ae</a></span> Follow us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thenationalArtsandLife">Facebook</a> for discussions, entertainment, reviews, wellness and news. Follow us