From critic to muse, my experience with the creative force of friendship

Razmig Bedirian found himself part of a friend's solo exhibition at Bayt Al Mamzar

Saif Mhaisen's Introduction marks his return to art after a five-year break. Pawan Singh / The National

Before the opening of Saif Mhaisen’s Introduction at Bayt Al Mamzar, I’d never attended an art exhibition where I was the subject of one of its works.

In the charcoal drawing, I am sitting on the couch of Mhaisen’s Bayt Al Mamzar studio, hands folded on my lap. The corner lamp casts a shadow of thick and textured charcoal across most of my face. In fact, not much can be seen besides the bridge of my nose and the rim of my glasses. Still, the work lays bare a sullen aspect of mine I am not very fond of.

I began wondering whether I had been particularly glum the day Mhaisen took the photographs he used as reference for the work. There was this and that bothering me, yes, and I was still struggling with that third thing. But really, was that so beyond the usual, gratuitous hubbub of worrying and self-criticism? I thought I had learnt to conceal it, push it to a mental alcove where it wouldn’t emanate from me.

Maybe I have, but Mhaisen, being a longtime friend, was familiar with the sullenness, and had captured it. To me, the work captures the shadow I drape around myself out of habit and bares it with all its farce.

Seeing the drawing at the exhibition, I chuckled. The comedy of my sheepish and downcast aspect yelping naked. Someone standing beside me looked at me curiously. I feigned my chuckle as an expression of amazement.

“The man knows his craft,” I said. “The details, and with charcoal!”

There was never any question of Mhaisen’s technical prowess as an artist. Even before travelling to the US in 2017 for his graduate studies as a painter at the Rhode Island School of Design, Mhaisen had already garnered a reputation in local artistic circles. He was specifically known for his large-scale oil paintings, which often depict people from his everyday life, from fellow artists to family members.

The paintings are rendered with photographic detail and influenced by the portraits of Rembrandt as much as Chuck Close and Lucian Freud. They were undeniably impressive in the way they caught a person’s minute features and glances.

The new works communicate something more. They also show what Mhaisen’s portraits may have been lacking previously.

Rendered in the monochrome and grain of charcoal, the drawings are less sharp and defined, but exhibit deeper aspects from their subjects, Mhaisen’s friends, many of whom are rooted in the local art community. These are portraits of people drawn by a person who knows them well and who, through light and shadow, has managed to coax out their idiosyncrasies.

The 14 works feature curator Munira Al Sayegh, who also curated Introduction; art academic and collector Sultan Al Qassemi; painter Tala Worrell; researcher Sarah Daher from the podcast Khosh Bosh; writer Gaith Abdulla, whose family owns Bayt Al Mamzar, as well as others.

Spotting a few familiar faces, I recognised their idiosyncrasies, which Mhaisen had captured in the works. Perhaps even more interesting was when viewing works that depicted people I hadn’t met. Confidence and excitement spring from some, whereas others have a more relaxed, tired, or even anxious demeanour about them.

I began looking for clues as to who the people in the works really were, the qualities in them that Mhaisen noticed and appreciated. I wondered what the conversations that ultimately informed the work revolved around. I wondered what part of themselves the people in the drawings saw depicted.

I first visited Mhaisen in his Bayt Al Mamzar studio in early 2022, soon after he returned to the UAE from New York. Seeing that he had reprised his practice with his ritualistic brand of focus was uplifting. He had repainted the walls of the studio space ­with a fresh coat of white. It was a clean slate, which in the months to come would become streaked with charcoal and handprints.

For his friends and those familiar with his work, Mhaisen’s move back to Dubai to make art was a bit of an event. It had been five years since he had professionally produced work. The pain of undergoing spinal treatment and a general listlessness towards art kept him back.

We spoke of these things, the circumstances that stifle creativity, and those that affect how open we are to the world around us. We spoke about what burdened us and excited us, smoked cigarettes and ate dates stuffed with peanut butter. Somewhere in the midst of this, Mhaisen brandished his camera and began taking photographs. The conversation went on uninterrupted.

After five years of travelling and living in the isolation of a New York City under lockdown, Mhaisen returned to the UAE with a roundabout epiphany. For him, the thing he had been doing all along, painting portraits of friends, suddenly had revitalised meaning.

Portraiture is still an underappreciated art form in the region, perhaps due to cultural, historic and social reasons. Yet, in the West, artists including Close and Freud were lauded for the way they captured their friends and peers. Besides serving as an elegant facet of art history, portraits also informed on the relationships that informed the work, a resonance between who is depicted, by whom and how. On a more sentimental level, such portraits touch upon the affection, respect and attention of the artist and their subject/friend.

Knowing Mhaisen, and the aloofness he once had that was often mistaken for misanthropy, the drawings at Introduction present the works of a person and artist transformed. Even if you’ve never met Mhaisen or any of the people he’s drawn, the works are impressive in their delicacy and technical prowess.

These are not commissioned portraits. Not kings, duchesses, or industrialists posing in a room with props that symbolise what they own or reign over. They are works by an artist who finds joy and meaning in dedicating his artistic practice to the company of his friends and peers.