“Reflections” is an exhibition of work created in my drawing classes and showcases the creativity of Zayed University Art and Design students.  Using various techniques, exploring surface and drawing media, students created a dynamic body of work that related to themselves and developed a visual language which explored issues of subjectivity and perceptions of the other, memory, narrative, gender and the environment. These drawings remind us of the past, connect us to the present and move us beyond the moment.  They give us an insight into the process of drawing and the freedom of thoughts and dreams.   

Alia Saif Al Falasi – creates a self portrait that celebrates the self using a playful decorative pattern.  In another work, she carefully renders a portrait of a Pakistani woman, capturing the history etched deeply in the lines of her face.

Self portrait, 2007
Alia Saif Al Falasi
Graphite

Sakina, 2008
Alia Saif Al Falasi
Graphite

Alia Abdulrahman Mohammad Taher  - records a personal memory of a journey to Mecca and of walking around the Ka'ba.  Alia works painstakingly from photographs and a hand drawn grid to recreate a pixilated memory and sense of journey. 

Untitled, 2007
Alia Abdulrahman Mohammad Taher
Graphite 

Nouf  Ali Sultan Al Dahmani’s drawing highlights the worker in Dubai – the maid, the gardener, workers who are seen but rarely represented in artworks.

Drainage, 2007
Nouf  Ali Sultan Al Dahmani 

Ayesha  Ahmed Al Saeed– explores beauty and notions of what is considered beautiful and coveted – the hair – and doing the unthinkable – cutting it.  
 

Hair Series #3, 2007
Ayesha  Ahmed Al Saeed
Graphite

Alhanoof Hussain Lootah– expresses a cheerful exhuberance in her collection of shoes.  The image is “all about me”. 

Me, 2007
Alhanoof Hussain Lootah
Graphite

Alya Hashem – “I am” is her self portrait on “becoming” an awareness of being that distinguishes her from others.

I am, 2008
Alya Hashem
Graphite and colored pencil


Self portrait, 2007
Alya Hashem
Graphite

Alia Khalid Al Abdooli – “The Link” is a hyper realistic technical rendering of remembrance of things past specifically of Alhambra and the beauty of Islamic architecture.  She chose the column to represent the link between sky and ground.


Alia Abdulhakim Malik’s imagery focuses on the “last drop” of water to invite discussion on the lack of natural resources in the gulf.  She wanted to capture the moment where the water has reached its last drop and society’s reaction. 

The Last Drop 
Alia Abdulhakim Malik
Graphite and chalk on panel

Noora Abdulbasit Al Suwaidi – rendered a delicate portrait of her grandmother’s hands – a visual meditation on aging.

Untitled, 2007
Noora Abdulbasit Al Suwaidi
Graphite

Meera Bint Yousef Al Serkal – comically renders the self under the sheets. 

Untitled, 2007
Meera Bint Yousef Al Serkal
Graphite

Maisoon Abdulla Saleh Mohammed Al Saleh – is preoccupied with skeletons and in her artwork, Till Death Do Us Part –she explores a vanitas theme of beauty and death. 


Maitha Mohamed Mattar – uses the reflection of a newly built skyscraper to reflect the architecture of the past – the wind tower.

Encounter, 2008
Maitha Mohamed Mattar
Graphite

Colleen Quigley is Assistant Professor of Art in the Art and Design Department at Zayed University.  She received her BFA in Sculpture from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.A. and MFA from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, in Tokyo, Japan where she focused on contemporary Japanese printmaking.  She also attended the New York Academy of Art Graduate Program in figurative Studies in Painting. She is the recipient of the Japanese Monbusho Research and Yoneyama Memorial Foundation Scholarships. Her work includes painting, sculpture/installation and printmaking. She has exhibited in Japan, the United States and the U.A.E. Her current series of works focus on migration, identity and changing cultural spaces.