"This photograph shows my brother Abdulla and I, visiting my father's farm in Abu Dhabi. Also, in the background is my brother Ahmed watching the camels. We used to visit the farm each week and join my father's friends gatherings and social conversations. My father finds joy in farming and nature and away from the city life. He is a retired policeman and lives in Khorfakkan, where nature is all around. I did live in the city for a little time, but then I moved to Al Bahia city which an area that has farms and very close to our recent farm." 

"When I was five years old in the fine art class at school we had homework to finish a drawing and that time I didn’t know how to draw so I let my bigger sister to do it for me. Later then my art teacher chose my drawing for an art competition and from this moment I started to teach myself until I decided to take my BFA in College of Fine Arts and Design at UOS. In my last year in college, my art was taking the path of conceptual contemporary art within the inspiration from my personal experiences with my family. For example, I always feel like I might lose things in my life’s journey, so I create metaphorical elements to save and remember these moments in my life – this makes it easy for me to understand. I became an artist to make express ideas through various artworks with a great sense of pride. It is an attempt to engage in culture through a dialogue of hand made things that share emotions and thought about the place I am from. The artwork is a new birth of an idea and celebrates the moment that exists, which I value sharing with the viewer."

"I was born in 1988 in Dubai but the first few years of my life I grew up in the US. I actually learned English first and Arabic at a later stage. Although it was such a long time ago my earliest memories were baking chocolate chip cookies with my neighbors and my first Halloween I was a lion. I had childhood friends there that I miss so badly and loss contact with, and I wish I could find and connect with them now. I used to also sneak into my father's room and grab his photography and art books and my parents would find them hidden underneath his desk!"

"I was a chess player from the age of 6 at the Ajman Chess Club. My mother was a chess trainer and my father volunteered at Ajman Chess Club and the UAE Chess Federation for some time. They would take me to the club and I used to go almost everyday. I participated in many chess competitions in the UAE and won some awards like First Place Under 16 competition in Abu Dhabi. This happened every year in their cultural center."

Abdulnasser Gharem, 1990s, King Abdulaziz Military Academy, Riyadh.
“During this time my father realized I was having doubts about my future. One day he took me aside and I expected him to tell me about his years in the Air Force, this kind of thing. But he surprised me and said ‘my advice is don’t do this. Don’t join the army.’ ‘Really?’ I said. ‘You should study art. Your skill is a gift from God. It is not something you can buy in the market. You must develop it.”

Artist Salman AlNajem : "As a child I'd easily be inspired and it didn't take much for me to be hooked onto something, from being a musician like my father, 'Jafar' from Aladdin, Crash Bandicoot or a construction builder. I made it a hobby of mine to find what I could or even draw myself as the person or thing I was concerned with being at the time."

 From left to right, Khalil with his childhood friend, Mr. Saeed Mohammed Alnaseri in Marsam Al Hur in mid 1990s. 
Khalil: "I met Hassan Sharif in late 1989 in Marsam al-Hur with another childhood friend. Marsam was an atelier in Deira near the old ministry building, which Hassan helped found in 1987. I began training with Hassan in 1990. Hassan started with basic fundamental techniques—painting drawing, and small sculptures, mostly focusing on still life. It was a step-by-step process, teaching us what was right or wrong, and making sure that when we did something wrong, we understood why. We practiced in pencil, charcoal, pastel, then oil color. I remember one time we had to crumble newspaper and mix it with glue, becoming a mud-hard object that had the appearance of dense, heavy concrete but physically featherlight. I wasn’t too keen on sculptures, but Hassan passed on to me that knowledge of how to create them. I eventually returned to painting, and even then, Hassan was teaching me correct fundamental painting and drawing, while allowing me freedom to explore the medium."

Artist Amira Al Awadhi and her father, artist Ahmed Rukni, Sharjah, UAE. 
Amira: "My dad, my art buddy. He never recieved an art education nor was he a part of the art scene when it first started in the UAE, yet he never hesitated to support me when I decided to pursue an art career after high school.

This photo was taken on the camera my dad used to take our baby pictures. He gave me that camera when I started experimenting with analog photography and I still use it to this day." Would like to see more of these creative families on the Archive!

"My childhood nightmare was going to the dentist for my tooth decay. This made me always want to be a dentist when I grew up! Why? Because I wanted to be treated in my own way. Later, I studied Telecommunication engineering at Etisalat University (Khalifa University now), ultimately became an artist, and now work for an art foundation in Sharjah.
This photo was taken in one of the weekends in the early 1990s by my father, at Al Zahra Games Center, very close to Sharjah Clock Roundabout, and close to where my studio is located now. I remember how this playful feeling would stay inside me for the whole week, and I know now how all of this impacted my artworks, and took it to different destinations.  
Growing up with the Nasrallah family helped me to take my creative side to different levels. Everything I do started from having a grandfather who runs an antique shop from the year 1963, with a father who is a banknote and rare stamps dealer.
Today, I believe that a playful art can help in solving my own problems."

"It was year 1979 and myself and a few other Emirati students flew out together to study abroad in the US. It was such a long trip to an unknown area. We first went to Missouri State University to study English as a language. I know, can you believe it, an Emirati in Missouri in the 1970s?! Missouri was located in the middle of nowhere and there weren't any Arabs there either but I soon realized I was lucky I went there because I perfected my American accent. At the time I was in Missouri it was the 1979 Iranian revolution and there was the whole hostage crisis in the US Embassy. People in Missouri there didn't know anything about those abroad. If they saw a foreign, un-American looking person they would shout to us in the markets "Go home you Iranian!" I didn't take it personally but that, coupled with being without my family, friends and missing the foods back at home really got me homesick. I even took my kandura out one day and wore it. I then studied art in Chapman College in California. There I really made the most of it-- I participated in American holidays and visited the national monuments in trips to Chicago and DC. I celebrated Halloween and even carved pumpkins with my new art friend's families." 

"It was 1965 in Kuwait when I first shared my work in an exhibition with the artists in Marsam Al Hur ('The Free Atelier'). During that time the Ministry of Education provided an old Kuwaiti mud-brick house for artists to work on their artwork and some were even paid a small salary. I was still a student then so technically wasn't part of the group, but I became close with older artists like Sami Mohammad and Jawad Boushahri. This was also the first time I saw the art books of masters like Michelangelo and Rubens. I would look at these books without reading because at that point I didn’t know how to read English. So I was reading the colors and learning how to create composition. In 1968 I was part of a touring exhibition with them and other Marsam artists around four European capitals: Athens, Madrid, London and Geneva. I really enjoyed Kuwait and miss my time there, but when I was in Kuwait, I didn’t look like a Kuwaiti, nor did I feel Kuwaiti. I was the only Emirati in the Kuwaiti Art Society. Especially before the UAE was formed in 1970, most Kuwaitis thought that I looked like them and they didn’t think any difference from me because I was from Dubai. This was because it was before Emirates was formed."

"This is HH Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi and myself in Cairo in 1976. He was opening an exhibition of our class when I was a student at the Cairo College of Fine Arts. I was one of the first to attend the College of Fine Arts in Cairo. Some of our classmates went to Cairo to become architects, painters, graphic designers in etching or printing, or interior designers. After myself came artists like Dr. Najat Makki, Abdul Rahim Salim, Mona al-Khaja and Obaid Suroor."

"This photo was taken by artist Jassim Al Awadhi during his black and white photography workshop at the Emirates Fine Art Society's old headquarters in the Summer 1988. At that time I joined two workshops--one in drawing and one in basic painting with Hassan Sharif and Abdulraheem Salem. The photography course was with Mr. Jassim. Jassim took the photo, gave me the negative, and I developed and fixed the photo in the Society's dark room. Later on I added some drawing to the photo by a pencil as you can see. It was really a great time back then, we were ready for any new art experience, we - or I shall say- I, was so happy at that time, having these questioned answered the more I met with these artists."

Can you spot any artist's baby pictures? Send a message if you spot any.🕵🏽‍♀️🔍I've tagged a few for you to get a head start! In 2008 artist Mohammad Al Qassab curated the 26th Annual Emirates Fine Art Society on "Memory," using the childhood photographs of participating artists as the cover page of the catalogue. Al Qassab explains: "I intended to show this as incentive to the children to think about drawing and the arts by showing artists during their childhood as a commonality."

"I was a very naughty kid during remember my childhood days in the 80s. Apart from playing football and our traditional games, I would love to swim in the Ajman sea. 
One day I decided to swim with my friends during terrible weather. We challenged ourselves to swim however I began to drown. I remember the terrible salt water going down my throat in that moment of fear. I tried so hard to reach the coastline by just continuously moving my hands and legs. I survived in the end, but it was one of my worst experience I ever faced. I learned from it though, and it gave me my motivation to never give up until I reach my goal."

"Along with being an artist, I am also a singer, actor and director. In 2001 I acted in a play held at the ‘Qasr Al Thiqafa’ (Cultural Palace) written by HH Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Mohammad Al Qasimi, Ruler of Sharjah. There must have been about 60 people participating in the show and I had one of the leading roles. I have good memories of the National Theatre because it was there in the library I also met with artists to discuss opening the Arts Society in the late 70s. I was a co-founder of the Sharjah National Theatre along with the Emirates Fine Art Society and acted, designed and wrote many plays with them. My theatre passion alludes to my childhood growing up in Kuwait as a boy scout and taking part in their arts programs."

"I never had an arts education growing up, but I would practice drawing with watercolor and pencil from school books and magazines I found. These drawings are from an Omani cultural book."

"This picture is an official school picture taken of me in the 6th grade. It was one of my prime years, after moving to many schools I was finally back to my favourite school reunited with my childhood friends. I got my first glasses, some chunky red ones (that I was ashamed to wear in public) and fell in love with my first ever favourite book during english class that was about inventors. I recall there was a painting across the hall to the art studio class that was painted by one of the seniors, and before entering my art class I would admire it wishing that one day it will be replaced with a painting of my own. My art teacher at the time had bloodshot eyes and the meanest stare but was the kindest to me. No one looked forward to his class except for me, he saw so much potential in me that he always insisted on teaching me more than my classmates. Every once a week in his class I felt I belonged the most, and somehow throughout his one syllables we understood each other quite well.”