Coffee Morning with the Orchestra
200x140cm, acrylic painting on the wall, 39 water colour sketches on music stands, sketch book with 50 water colour sketches on the conductor music stand.
50 water colour sketches come directly from the mangroves. Painted from a kayak, Zahidah gathers 30 sketches as a one-piece mosaic, each upon a music stand gathered together as if an orchestra. The conductor’s music book contains around 20 water colour sketches. The large size painting ’Coffee Morning’, representing my daily world amidst the expanse of the mangroves, is the ‘conductor’ of her display. The fish bowl, the sofa, pillow, the carpet are in my sitting room area. The crab on the melting clock represents the time I’ve been in the mangroves in the UAE and in Victoria, Australia. However, the melting clock motif I borrowed from Salvador Dali, while the crab was actually there near me in my kayak. While I was sketching a bird, I realized the presence of a small crab! I place written texts on the hair, the bird, the cup of coffee on the right hand side of the picture and on the sofa, the small vase with the daffodil flowers on the left hand side and on the sofa and written texts on the world map on the sofa. The texts are written in two languages: Arabic and English, based on selected poems and own thoughts.
Emotions have played an important role in the production of this series; the process of painting has actually been a form of art therapy, a kind of meditation. I feel deeply connected to mangrove areas and my sense of responsibility for them is akin to looking after a family and protecting them. I may not be able to stop the war in my homeland of Syria, but I can run a campaign to protect the mangroves and by that way the Earth.
Mangroves sites are a heaven for birds, fish, crabs and more and are considered to be the Earth’s lung and protector of our shores. Mangroves and sea grass are very effective in reducing the carbon from the air and providing us oxygen, and so it’s madness to harm them. Not all the mangroves in the world are protected as the development and the pollution is the major threat of the mangroves.
I have worked almost entirely from my kayak in the mangroves, sketching water colours upon different types of paper.
