Emirati doll is 8.5in of artistic pleasure
It gives dolled up a whole new meaning. If you want to see what a hundred talented and artistic adults can do with an eight-inch vinyl doll then the Dubai International Financial Centre's (DIFC) Gate Village is the place until June 26.
In a unique artistic initiative, artists from all over the country have custom painted their own colourful creations on the Mega doll created by Dubai-based company Foo-Dog, co-founded by Mohammed Abedin.
Foo-Dog is an art company focusing on creating urban art and fusions of culture, and its creation – the vinyl eight-inch-tall, bulbous doll Mega, which lends itself to various customisations – has been used by the artists to render their own versions of what it should look like.
All of the dolls thus decorated now stand before the public gaze at the DIFC – designer toys metamorphosed into examples of urban art. "Our idea was to bring artists of different nationalities together and give them recognition," said Abedin. His design for the Mega doll was influenced by Asia's colourful history and urban art, and says it personifies a "time traveller having an affinity with metamorphosis".
"Its white colour shows its ability to take on any shape, size or even colour – or maybe a personality based on its surroundings," he said.
The 22-year-old Emirati designer, born in Bangkok, loved toys, video games and graphic novels as a child. Later, he began collecting toys and drawing the cartoons and video game characters he read or saw on the screen. Visiting art galleries in Akihabara in Japan on a recent trip sparked the idea of designing "the Emirati Doll". "I can express myself best with a combination of comic and urban art forms. It allows me to venture forward," he said.
And venture he did, with the Mega – a doll whose coming has given artists in Dubai a new platform to display their skills in 3D.
Two of the artistes participating, Sasan Saidi and Liz Ramos, are associated with?Dubai?Media Incorporated, publishers of Emirates Business.
Saidi said he was inspired by the Venus Fly Trap, a carnivorous plant. A graphic designer, he brought his creative skills to play by giving the doll a human touch, though a dark one all his own.
"I actually wanted to get a jacket and a mask made for the doll but given the time constraints I fell back on the kind of painting I generally do – the dark, sinister kind. Anybody who knows me will be able to say that I have made it. It's totally my style," he said.
A trend these days is of superheroes, who save the world with their super powers. And Ramos, an Info-Graphics Editor from Peru, painted her Mega as a female superhero – or superheroine – a cute little doll in white, blue and black with an arrow on her back, wounded yet standing strong. "I changed my theme twice before painting this. I generally love painting female characters who are strong, that's why I painted her in white, blue and black to show that although she is wounded, she is untouched by emotions and yet a warrior."
- Unpainted Mega dolls are available at the Cuadro Fine Arts Gallery at DIFC