The representation of human emotions via facial expressions has been very heart touching for artists and art lovers. It can be considered as an extraordinary way of telling different stories and expressing a variety of emotions through one unique painting. Each person can see it and feel it based on his own life experiences. This is exactly the mission behind the art exhibition “Faces Narrate Tales” by Omani artist Maryam al Wahaibi which opened on January 8 under the auspices of Luzaina Muhsin Darwish.
Maryam is one of Oman’s successful and prominent artists. She graduated with a Bachelor's degree in business management. After that, she followed her passion for art and was a member of the Omani Society of Arts in 1999 and a member of Oman Youth Studio “Marsam Al Shabab”. She won second place in the Annual Exhibition Award in Arts in 2018. She belongs to the symbolism and expressionism school which focuses more on the feelings and emotions behind the artwork.
'Faces Narrate Tales' exhibition focuses on the idea of expressing emotions through faces. Each art lover can weave a unique tale after seeing the artwork based on his own thoughts, beliefs, emotions as well as life experiences. Therefore, visitors of the exhibition can enjoy seeing each painting in different styles and experience a variety of emotions.
Maryam shared: “The name of the exhibition reveals the fact that every face in my paintings represents a specific person or kind of character, and behind each face there is a story that hasn’t been told. I wanted to inspire visitors to create their own wonderful stories so that the paintings captivate not only their sights but also hearts and minds.”
What makes the exhibition even more charming is the presence of poetry along with art as each artwork is attached with few verses of Aisha al Saifi’s exquisite and remarkable poems.
Maryam said that she made all the paintings with great love and passion; however, there are three of them that were very close to her heart. First of which is “Find Your Face”, a painting that consists of 80 small paintings of faces arranged side by side. This work makes visitors gaze between the stacked faces, and see which face is similar to theirs, or a face they have seen before, or one that delivers strong feelings.
The other work is “Daughters of Light,” which is one of Maryam’s favourites as it is a little different from the rest of the works due to the boldness of the colours used and the feelings poured into it.
Likewise, the work “Nostalgia” is one of the works that she is very proud of as it carries the story of nostalgia for the places, people and things we left behind.
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