Saudi Arabian art to feature in Christie's Dubai sale

The sale follows Jewels and Watches to be held on April 28th, 2009, and will include works by six contemporary artists including Ahmed Mater Al-Ziad Aseeri and Lulwah Al-Homoud, reflecting the vibrancy of the Kingdom's young artistic talent.

William Lawrie, specialist in charge of the sale, said, "Last October we introduced Turkish artists for the first time in our sales and this season we have secured an exciting, select group of works from contemporary Saudi Arabian artists. I first saw their work in London at the progressive 'Edge of Arabia' show at the SOAS Brunei Gallery at the end of last year and we decided that they would provide additional artistic talent to our sales which includes works from Egyptian, Turkish, Iranian, Lebanese, North African, Syrian, Iraqi, western and Moroccan artists."

Michael Jeha, Managing Director of Christie's Middle East, said:

"Much of the growth of the art market in the Gulf, and especially Dubai, has been because buyers of modern and contemporary art have begun looking at that of their neighbours and including it in their collections. As it develops, the market is becoming broader and deeper and is not reliant on a single group of buyers, particular region or country in the world. Indeed, we have noticed a significant increase in the number of buyers at our sales from the Middle East with 75% of the Dubai art sale buyers last year from the region, up from an average of 50% in previous years. With the introduction of this group of Saudi Arabian lots we are hoping to continue this trend and further extend the reach of the sales to collectors throughout the region. We are also delighted to continue our sponsoring partnership with Credit Suisse, one of the leading global providers of financial products and services in Private Banking, Investment Banking, and Asset Management."

Saudi Arabian Section:

Ahmed Mater Al-Ziad Aseeri, a doctor, landscape photographer and businessman who was born in Abha, in Aseer in 1979 and is one of Saudi Arabia's most celebrated young artists, will offer a work form his X-Ray series which shows a skeletal head and torso set upon sheets resembling pages from a traditional religious text. Illumination V and I is made of X-ray film print on paper stained with tea and pomegranate juice and embossed with gold leaf, turquoise, amber and carnelian. Maharam, a play on the Arabic word used to describe tissues and your close family, is by Ayman Yossri Daydban. In this work, first seen at the 'Edge of Arabia' show, the Jeddah-based artist has taken a group of tissue boxes, decorated them with posters advertising classic Arabic films from the 1940s or 1950s and stacked them beside and on top of one another.

Al Batin by Lulwah Al-Homoud, who has lived much of her life in the UK and studied for her MA at Central St Martins College of Art and Design, London, is a work based on calligraphy. There is also a work by Mahdi Al-Jeraibi, who has lived much of his life in Makkah having graduated from the School of Fine Art in Riyadh. From his Dialectics series, which uses lids from old school desks, it was previously used in a classroom in a secondary school in Makkah. Al-Jeraibi has then added a calligraphic design to the scratched surface which is marked with graffiti.

Abdulnasser Gharem is both an artist and a Major in the Saudi Arabian Army. He studied at the Al-Miftaha Arts Village in Abha along with his friend Ahmed Mater Al-Ziad Aseeri. His Concrete, is made up of around 80,000 tiny rubber printing blocks, showing Arabic and English characters and numbers which have then been over-painted in industrial yellow paint to resemble a traffic bollard or sleeper. Reem Al-Faisal, studied Arabic Literature at university before moving on to study photography in Paris. Al-Faisal now alternates between Jeddah and Paris, having photographed throughout the Middle East, America and East Asia. From the Series Hajj, Pilgimage to Makkah will be offered in the sale. Al-Faisal was one of the first women to be granted permission to photograph in the Holy cities of Makkah and Al-Medinah.