This teacher speaks through colours
dubai — Yemeni expat Kawkeb Muhsin is an art teacher at the Rashid Centre for the Disabled in Dubai. She first took the brush and paint in 2003, attended various workshops and became an assistant art teacher in 2011. She is born deaf-mute but despite her disability, she says, her mission is to transform Rashid Centre into a ‘hub of creativity’ for ‘people of determination’.
Kawkeb, 30, says concepts and emotions that are usually difficult to express with words can be best conveyed through the arts. “My students have communication disabilities and they usually find it hard expressing themselves with words but they utilise art to convey their thoughts and inner feelings,” she tells Khaleej Times through an interpreter.
“My advice to my students is not to be ‘afraid’ of expressing themselves through art. The process of putting one’s self into a canvas or a piece of paper not only helps in exploring their emotions and improving their communication skills, it can also be used as a mode of selfdiscovery.”
Kawkeb shares this view from her own experience. She says, when she first made her first painting back in 2003, it was just out of curiosity. “Then it (painting) became a hobby and my hobby turned into a passion. I attended several workshops and enrolled at Rashid Centre where my teachers saw my potential and honed my talent. I owe them a lot in improving my technique and skills.”
At the beginning, Kawkeb loved drawing women’s eyes, noting that many women in the UAE wear hijab with niqab and only their eyes are shown. “Those eyes are very expressive and I wanted to capture the emotion,” she says.
From drawing women’s eyes, Kawkeb flexed her hands painting horses, dancing women and now she is doing profiles of various personalities, including His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai; Emirati singer Ahlam Ali Al Shamsi and Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan.
She also loves painting various landscapes and Spanish women dancing flamenco. Her favourite medium is oil but she also uses mixed-media, including papiermâché, to do art installations.
Kawkeb has participated in several exhibitions at various malls in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. She has sold many of her artworks and has been commissioned to do murals.
But what gives her the most satisfaction is when she sees her students taking a brush and applying colours on canvas.
“We start by teaching our students the basics like training them to do colouring of fruits and vegetables. When they feel confident, they are asked to sketch,” Kawkeb says.
“Our students are of various nationalities and different cultural backgrounds. But when we are in class, we only speak of one language — art. Of course, we communicate through sign language, but art is our universal language and it has no boundaries.”
Kawkeb says she wants her students to break away from social stereotypes by letting their creativity flow. She hopes her students will live life to the fullest by leading an artful and colourful life.