Saudi Arabia Art Scene – The Invisible Contemporary Art

What do we know about Saudi Arabia art scene? Not so much, right? If you live in Europe, Americas, Australia or East Asia, you certainly do not receive much information about contemporary art scene in the largest country of the Arabian Peninsula. Why is that? Saudi Arabia is not North Korea – journalists are usually able to freely report from this country, and there is no any kind of media blockade. Also, many Saudis (including Saudi artists) are travelling around the world. The fact is that Saudi Arabia is a country with rigorous religious laws, a country often described as “authoritarian”, where freedom of expression (including freedom of art expression) is under oppression. However, Saudi Arabia art scene has a lot to offer.

The Enigmatic Journey of an Inspired Artist Born into an obscure world of constant movement, travel and confusion, Dia Aziz Dia drew on these experiences to form the back ground required to create his art. Due to his father, who was a pioneer of the cultural movement in Saudi Arabia. His early travels took him from Mecca to Cairo, India, Jeddah, Beirut, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Italy. His mother and her constant attempts to give Dia a normal childhood were the only stable thing in his life, she gained a real presence in the child's inner world. Her being there came as the evidence of clarity that paralleled the father's enigmatic nature and shed light on the prevailing confusion.
Dia's confidence in schooling only returned when he won a scholarship to study Art at the academy of fine Arts in Rome, where for four years he was in constant search and study to find and realize himself.. Those years blossomed and perfected Dia's artistic vision and talents Upon return to Saudi Arabia he became a teacher of Art. This position only lasted for 2 years because Dia felt it was diminishing his artistic talents due to monotonous and routine lifestyle. From that point on, Dia has been concentrating on his art. He passed through many hardships to balance his love of art, and necessities of life. Dia considered art an attempt to reveal the secret that was hidden behind appearance. Thus, he constantly tried to depict the human face because he considered it the key to understanding the person and away to question his or her secrets and inherent potential. This could be carried out through capturing the details of the face in a process that combined drawing and erasing. It resulted in an abstract face, not in the usual sense of abstraction, but in the sense of denying the details that were not relevant to the notion that the artist wanted to capture. The artist focused only on the meaningful fragments, which were the expression of the world that he was trying to depict. Dia worked himself to being one of the Arab worlds leading figures in art. Today his paintings are owned by prominent art lovers in Saudi Arabia and many of his sculptures can be found on some of Jeddah's main plazas and roads. He has successfully laid the foundation for anchoring art within a countrie's traditions and needs. These accomplishments have interested the Al Mansouria Foundation for Culture and Creativity to publish Dia's art as the first of a series of publications dedicated to the works of pioneering Saudi Artists.