Najat Makki, childhood photo
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Najat Makki was born in 1956, in Bur Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Her father ran a herbal medicine shop. As a child, much to her mother’s consternation, Makki used to scratch and paint on the walls of the family home. After being chastised, she was given paper and art materials instead.
Makki grew up beside the sea and its rich shades usually form the base of her paintings.
In her childhood, Najat Makki attended Khawla bint Alazwar primary school. At school, Makki’s teachers recognized her talents. "They really pushed me. They talked to me, encouraged me, and gave me so much energy. They steered me towards my scholarship, which was not easy for a woman at that time," she recalls.
Later, as the first Emirati woman to receive a government scholarship to study art aboard, Makki traveled to the College of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1977 where she obtained her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in relief sculptures and metalwork. Later, in 2001 she received a Ph.D. in numisology.
When she returned from Egypt, Makki began working for the Ministry of Education, conducting art workshops and teacher training. Makki’s practice diverted away from sculpture early on in her career. She found her identity and her calling in painting and has been prolific in the medium ever since.
Makki’s first public exhibition was in 1979 at Al Wasl Club, Dubai. Since then, her work has been exhibited across the Middle East and Europe. It can be seen in Dubai at the Hunar Gallery and Beyat Gallery and in Abu Dhabi at the Etihad Modern Art Gallery. Makki has exhibited her paintings in Egypt, France, Germany, India, Jordan, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.
Najat Makki’s artistic career passed through several stylistic phases over the decades, including realism and abstract expressionism. She developed a technique inspired by modernism as it relates to both her local environment and the human condition. Her work frequently incorporates items from nature, such as saffron, henna, or bark. Often known for her focus on the female figure and symbols, in recent years Makki has created paintings with a more abstracted look, distinguishing herself from her peers. She portrays an underlying rhythm and spirit through her choice of vivid colors.
In any review of Emirati contemporary art, the name of pioneering artist Najat Makki comes to the fore. She continues to amaze art devotees after more than 40 years of artistic endeavors. Makki has won numerous awards throughout her career, including the National Award for Arts, Sciences, and Literature in 2008.
She is also the only woman among 15 artists chosen to represent her country at this year’s Venice Biennale, where exhibition curator Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi picked five of her early sculptures to take pride of place.
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Makki said most of her work was inspired by her home environment, which is reflected in sculpture, relief, painting, collage, multimedia, and installation covering realism to abstract expressionism.
Quotations:
"Women always give. They feel pain but they don’t complain. They care for children ahead of themselves and they carry great responsibility in caring for the whole family."
"Everything has color to me. When I was a child, my father owned an herbal medicine shop. It was full of boxes of all different herbs as well as indigo dye and alum-block. I used them all to paint on paper bags. That’s when I started to love color. At home, I watched my sisters make cushions and curtains from brightly colored material. I learned about light and shadow from watching my mother fold our clothes. My relationship with color didn’t just come; I worked on it by learning from everything I saw."
