08 February 2022
“Sharif & Sharif” Exhibition Opening, A Duo exhibition combining creative art works by father and son, Abdul Rahim Sharif and Hisham Sharif
The Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities will formally open a creative group art exhibition, on 9 February 2022, “Sharif & Sharif”, featuring one of the most prominent pioneers of the formative fine art movement in Bahrain, namely Abdul Rahim Sharif, and his son Hisham Sharif. The special evening of art event will take place at the Art Center at 7:00pm. The exhibition will run until 23 February 2022, and visitors can enjoy the masterpieces displayed at the halls of the center daily from 9:00 am- 8:00 pm.
The exhibition sheds light on the painterly roots of modern art in the Gulf with a fresh, contemporary lens, filling the generational gap on different ends of a vast and dynamic art scene. Artists Abdul Rahim Sharif, who is predominantly a painter who is known for his large and colourful canvases, will explore the worlds of figuration or abstraction. In his most recent series, “River of Sin”, he combines the two, and all interestingly from a birds-eye perspective as though we – the viewers – are watching this painted world take place from above. The eight works exhibited as part of this series, all painted between 2012-2021, are large-scale compositions designed to immerse the viewer in this “river”. His son, Hisham will marvelous paintings that tend to embrace figuration with chaotic, crowded scenes of cities and celebrations, most of which incorporated hints of colour in otherwise monochrome compositions.
Worth to mention that Abdul Rahim Sharif is also one of Bahrain’s pioneer contemporary artists, leading the way locally as one of the founding members of the Bahrain Arts Society many decades ago. Born in Manama in 1954, Abdul Rahim then studied fine arts at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris and later completed an MFA at Parson’s School of Arts in New York, before returning to Bahrain as a full-time artist. Most recently, Abdul Rahim was awarded the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French Republic in 2022, one of France’s most distinguished official titles.
His son, Hisham, Born in 1993, has, indeed, changed from his original career in finance to art in 2017, when he had his first solo exhibition at the Bahrain Arts Society. A huge success, Hisham’s artistic path began to emerge, winning a recognition award at the 45th Bahrain Annual Fine Arts Exhibition in 2019, and beginning an artists’ residency shortly after in New York City, USA.
