Artwork Deep Dives

Juma Al Haj, Of Mud, 2021

Artist
Juma Al Haj
Author
Nicole Kanne
Published
24 September 2024

Anyone looking to immerse themselves in the oeuvre of Emirati artist Juma Al Haj will soon notice two of its most conspicuous qualities - Al Haj’s unique approach to artistic creation and his distinctive visual language. While these two elements contribute to the visually and conceptually captivating nature of his paintings, they also make it difficult to attempt a clear categorisation of his work, which often blurs the line between figuration and abstraction.

Born in 1990 and raised between the UAE and the USA, Al Haj is known for his large-scale works, often featuring horizontal lines that recall different forms of script. His artistic process can be described as a filtering of emotional and spiritual experiences derived from his engagement with different texts (ranging from religious texts, philosophy, literature, poetry, and personal notes), which are then translated onto the canvas.

If we were to attempt a characterisation of Al Haj’s paintings through the lens of art history, the most immediate comparison would perhaps be the lines and scribbles in the works of American artist Cy Twombly (1928-2011), whose oeuvre also famously evaded an easy categorisation into any artistic movement of the 20th century.

While Twombly’s scribbles were not the inspiration for Al Haj’s work, the two artists nevertheless share the approach of translating their personal experience and interpretation of textual sources into their respective works. In so doing, they create visuals that are neither figurative nor fully abstract, while the rarity of their use of actual letters or words does not support an obvious classification as calligraphy. But while Twombly’s works are known for their frantic and at times childlike scrawls, Al Haj’s canvases feature neatly ordered lines, reminiscent of the layout of texts like poems, literary works, or religious texts, on a page.

Such is the case in his 2021 work Of Mud in the Dubai Collection. In this painting, a Rothko-esque colour field of bright ochre is spread across the picture, its edges leaving a narrow stretch of bare canvas on each side. Softly meandering strokes create horizontal lines across the colour plane, inviting an interpretation of the work as an ancient piece of text, with its earthy hue and aged appearance reminiscent of an old piece of parchment uncovered as part of an archaeological excavation.

“It’s part of a bigger story,” says Al Haj, “this specific piece falls into the process of death within the Islamic culture. We’re all taught that we have these tablets, and once we die, we can’t add anymore to [them]. They are tablets of our deeds and all our deeds are written down.”

He goes on to explain his choice of colour, referencing drying clay or mud, “In Islam it says that humans were created out of clay or mud, so I wanted to use that effect and show that, as the mud is drying up, the life of a specific person is also up [...] so once it’s wet you can still change your deeds, add good deeds, add bad deeds, and ask for apologies, but once it’s dried up, you can’t really change it. And the tablet that you see is in the process of drying up, so it looks like text, but at the same time the text denotes our life story, things we did in our lives and things that we can’t change.”

Along some of the horizontal lines in the painting, certain sections seem to stand out through the use of thicker strokes and bright blue accents. Should they be read as highlights in the text of our life? Or else as crossings-out of experiences we would rather overwrite? 

“Initially it was just brown and when I looked back at it, it did look like someone was crossing it out. But when I added the blue, it added an extra dimension where you can reference blue to water, or blue to being wet, or blue to a third dimension, because dying is also a new dimension [...] so it’s not necessarily crossed out, it’s just that it hasn’t dried up yet, that’s the image in my mind,” says Al Haj.

The artist’s educational background brings together a variety of approaches to visual culture. He initially studied Visual Communications and International Relations with a focus on Visual Rhetoric, but it was not until participating in a residency programme at the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation, that he started sharing his work with the public and seeking additional artistic training as a step towards personal growth.

With the aim of improving his Arabic calligraphy skills, Al Haj then embarked on an art mentorship programme at the New School of Northern Virginia. He recalls, “the traditional calligraphy skills and the methodologies that were used there influenced the practice that you see right now. They gave me the ability to hold my hands in certain sequences, and my hand can move faster than the speed of my thoughts now [...] it gave me the skill to know the rules and know when to break them.” 

In a truly 21st century manner, audiences interested in Al Haj’s work can follow his process of creation on his Instagram account, where he regularly shares videos of his practice, documenting everything from the set-up of his easel, his contemplation of a work mid-process, and his application of colour onto the canvas. “I documented my journey just to make sure that there is a legacy [...] and it turned into this unintentional marketing tool,” says Al Haj, “but at the same time, when I stop, people keep on asking for them because they enjoy seeing the process.”

The key to understanding Al Haj’s oeuvre, then, seems to be his deep intellectual engagement with religious traditions, literary works, and contemporary visual culture, as well as the purposeful development of his unique visual language.

But to add an additional layer of understanding, we may also consider placing his artistic practice in the context of the wider cultural development of the UAE, for despite the apparent singularity of his work, Al Haj’s trajectory is also emblematic of the country’s flourishing art scene - a deep commitment to preserving cultural and religious traditions, paired with a truly 21st century approach to culture, characterised by its global perspective and unwavering confidence in its own artistic future.