Something Overlooked

Reem Al Ani

 “Something Overlooked” is a detailed drawing, 59.4 × 84.1cm in size, done in acrylic paints, ink pens, and felt tip markers on paper. It emulates the Persian and Ottoman miniature styles, but modernized in both drawing style – brightly colored but retailing the two-dimensionality – as well as content. Borrowing different elements of Persian miniature paintings to create one “larger” miniature, it is a collage of women going about their daily lives, mostly leisure, looking satisfied and confident. At the top left is a woman exiting her house, wearing an Abaya but with trendier clothes. At the top right, women are enjoying their day at a café on a balcony. Other women go shopping. There are women wearing hijabs and others without a hijab. Two women go camping on their own, enjoying the scene. Finally, there is a man holding a baby in his arms on an escalator. The perspective, similar to miniatures, is slightly skewed. The terrain, as well, is related to Dubai. An arabesque pattern and foliage decorate the miniature throughout.

Persian miniatures were often used to accompany manuscripts and were narrative in nature, often depicting religious events, or scenes from every day life. Miniatures are part of larger works compiled into albums that were restricted to rulers, thus were not viewed. Just like how these manuscripts are valuable and expensive, and a part of Islamic history, modern extremists nowadays would like to preserve this “liberal” image of women in the past and almost censor them from the public eye or knowledge. The scenes depicted in the artwork are normal, every day scenes in different countries in the Middle East, which unfortunately some people, particularly men, see as undesirable. These people try to justify their reasoning through religion; however, this is in fact contradictory in Islam as Khadija, the Prophet’s first wife, was a successful businesswoman in her time. The verse that is the most misinterpreted, according to several Muslim scholars, is verse 4:34 in the Holy Quran that introduces the concept of “qiwamah”, or responsibility of men over women, which some people equate to men’s superiority and authority over women, when in fact if a woman is the breadwinner of the household, she has equal responsibility to exercise guardianship over her household. Many people try to read the Quran as literally as possible to justify their actions, which has a myriad of repercussions, from the more severe, the justification of spousal abuse, to the everyday, unnecessarily sheltering women, and blaming them for being a temptation.

The inspiration to create this work around this subject matter is attributed to Hayv Kahraman, an Iraqi female artist. She examines the various ways in which the women deal with their sexuality and femininity post-war, sometimes depicting women during hair-removal and beautification process. She draws inspiration from Persian miniatures to draw her women, and her Muslim women express their identity in different ways, and are not a homogenous group of people.

Reem Al Ani is an Iraqi student studying Advertising at the American University in Dubai. She enjoys creativity, complexity, and controversy, and employs this in her illustration and written work to the best of her ability. She seeks irony in every context, and social issues such as the abuse of domestic workers and environmental issues fuel her desire to communicate and impact others whenever possible.