Premonition, 2012

Premonition follows the perspective of a Bahraini female critiquing European women in Renaissance art. Women in Renaissance art were depicted frequently as immortal characters void of their humanity – either as the Virgin Madonna within churches or as sensual Goddesses such as Botticelli’s Venus, as widely patronized by the Medicis. The artist’s aim is to challenge if not reverse the roles where the female turns from being an object of neither holiness nor desire, which is still common in contemporary Bahraini society, into a confrontational mortal character capable of wounding wild beasts and participating in strife.

The project consists of two large-scale drawings. The first drawing is of the artist wrestling with a lion and the second is of the lion being struck by light. Both share qualities akin to the aesthetics of Renaissance art and are autobiographical to the artist’s struggle with her religious views: the desire to please God conflicting with her desire to oppose a religious lifestyle that seemed incompatible with Bahraini culture.