artBahrain: What is your personal definition of art?

Tagreed Albagshi : Art is what life has taught me – the language of the faces and secrets.  The first sight you see in the depths of the self, of feelings and dare explore its potential with timeless opposites, but this always gives me a sense of fear but with hope. And all of these take me to read everything around me well.  And because of the instability and wariness of dealing with the human self as I often see, made me choose to stay away and access to the world of dream and imagination making my wonderful world and draw and convey myself. This is art for me.

AB: How were you introduced into the arts?

TA: Art has a lot of energy; it was inside me the second I opened my eyes to the world that surrounds me. Color attracts me and the beauty and depth of humanity and feelings all this was the cause of the interaction and the relationship between me and the painting and colors.

AB: When & why did you first begin making art? Your medium?

TA: I started making art since I was a child. For me I feel I find myself when I’m painting , what I’m thinking about and my view on everything around , I have to say that  all the artist are lucky because they have a wonderful small world. I work with acrylic and oil paint, oil stick and silk screen. I had my first exhibition in 2000.

AB: What themes do you pursue?

TA: Social issues, especially those that affect women, women and the nature of the relationships. Also I enjoy reading books that talk about the nature of the human soul; I translate them into concepts in my paintings.

Tagreed Albagshi – Women and dream, 2012.
150 X 200 cm, acrylic on canvas

AB: What do you try and convey in your work?

TA: I talk and express through art about the status of women in Saudi Arabia. The feelings and a sense of ownership and needs in her life, dreams and ambition, and self-assertion and insight into public and private lives of the women in my homeland. In my paintings I tell stories about women, in my own words. Women are important subjects in my work simply because I am a woman…I see it as my responsibility to defend our right to live equally under the same sky.

AB: What are you working on currently?

TA: I am working on developing my techniques and transcribing lines in the introduction of figurative drawing in contemporary art.

AB: Do you have any dream project?

TA: My big dream is to build a project in the academy for children and the needy that will teach them about contemporary art, and support art therapy projects.

AB: Finally, where do you think art in Saudi Arabia is heading?

TA: I think art in Saudi Arabia is consistent with the larger world.  The fast and strong development of art in Saudi is appropriate to the changes of contemporary art and builds on a concept of society based in deep ideas.