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When one speaks about art, it evokes the conventional mental image of an art gallery filled with oil, acrylic paintings or for the adventurous few, a handful of sculptures. But in the last century, this perspective has been challenged by a host of modern art forms, with graffiti leading that charge.
Graffiti, despite its storied and cultural history, evokes mixed feelings with many taggers choosing to remain anonymous while authorities and property owners accuse them of vandalism.
But Bahrain’s first female graffiti artist, Samar Bushehri, sees art and wants to change people’s perception of the art form, one tag at a time.
During a break from her latest piece at the new District 1 mall, she sat down with GulfWeekly for an interview, saying: “Graffiti touches many parts of our everyday lives. The graffiti that my fellow taggers and I do is of course, with the permission of the property owners, and sometimes they even encourage and pay us for it. Street art, like graffiti, can be a beautiful masterpiece, making any walk around a city block that much more interesting.
“I believe most graffiti is not vandalism, especially when you think about the amount of effort the artist has put into it, and the character that it adds to any wall. It makes people walk around the city appreciating different pieces, and sometimes just stand and read each one or figure out what must have been going on in the artist’s mind.”
Though she has been a lifelong artist, Samar got her start in street art almost eight years ago, when she participated in the Batelco Live Graffiti Art competition and won first place, getting 507 likes for her piece entitled “Dream Your App.”
She has since participated in many competitions including a National Day competition, Bahrain’s first Graffiti Jam and a number of pieces for stores around the kingdom.
She reminisced: “Ever since I was a child, whenever we travelled, I used to love walking around and seeing all the colourful street art and graffiti around the block. And I used to think to myself that one day, I want to do that. It always caught my attention and I wanted to see more art like that in my own country.
“Once I grew up, I started to learn more about it, and inspired by those pieces, I started to draw a few in my sketchbook. I hope that one day, someone can look at my pieces and say, yes I want to do something like that. People might seem against it, but it’s sad that a lot of that creative talent lies buried in sketchbooks.”
Samar’s graffiti rides a balance between throw-up and wild-style. In the graffiti world, a throw-up is a complicated tag with two or more colours and bubble-style lettering. Wild-style is a version of throw-up that can be complicated for non-graffiti artists to decipher and often consists of arrows, curves and spikes.
The 26-year-old University of Bahrain graduate also likes to bring in elements of Arabic calligraphy, albeit with a different lithograph, into her pieces.
Her most recent Arabic piece was at the upcoming Mall of Dilmunia and caught the eye of Shaikha Hala bint Mohammed Al Khalifa, Culture and Arts director of Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities (BACA). In Arabic, Samar tagged the word, “Dilmun” as an homage to the kingdom’s historic roots and civilisation.
On the side-lines of that event, Shaikha Hala commented about Samar’s piece: “I was very proud to see a young lady who works with graffiti. In Bahrain, I haven’t seen anyone else in that medium. It’s really empowering to see that kind of presence on the scene.”
Samar’s process often involves inspiration from positive tags from local and international artists. Once she has an idea, she sketches it out in her book and picks her colours, often going for bright colours.
She then dons her respirator mask over her hijab and, with a vigorous shake of her aerosol spray, starts off with her base layer, sketching out the rough design of the piece. In addition to a blueprint which she can fill in later, this lets her get a feel for the wall, where every previous paint job or touch up can affect the final piece. Every piece takes six to seven hours and she has done more than 20 pieces so far.
Hailing from a family with an artistic streak, Samar has always used forms of artistic expression to show her creativity. Her father, Salman is an artist, and her brother Sam is a musician and singer.
Beyond graffiti, Samar also does special effects (SFX) using makeup, creating stunning and realistic bloody pieces that mimic ripped, cut and sometimes mutilated skin and body parts. While definitely not child-friendly, these pieces are incredibly fascinating, if just for the work that goes into recreating the effect synthetically.
She has done a lot of SFX over the years, most notably working in the makeup department for Bahraini movie SAMA, released last year, for which she earned her own page on IMDb.
On her plans for the future, she said: “I would like to do pieces outside Bahrain as well and try to elevate the level of graffiti in the region. I am also aiming to do workshops where I can train children, or even adults, who want to learn more about the medium. I want to see what the next generation of graffiti holds for our kingdom!”
Check out Samar’s graffiti and SFX work on Instagram: @samarbushehriart
