87 THE YOUNG COLLECTORS The seventh Young Collectors feature looks at the future patrons of Middle Eastern art. They open their doors to Canvas and share works from their eclectic art collections. 88 Sarvenaz and Reza Sepehi Sarvenaz and Reza Sepehi I’d love to dine with: S: Marina Abramovic. R: Pablo Picasso. I would pay monthly installments forever for a work by: S : Mark Rothko. R: Alberto Giacometti. Wishlist: S: Shirin Neshat, Samia Halaby and Rokni Haerizadeh. R: Paul Guiragossian, Ahmed Al-Soudani, Farhad Moshiri and Charles Hossein Zenderoudi. 89 I n 2006, Sarvenaz and Reza met at a dinner hosted by Magic of Persia in London, which not only helped them discover their mutual appreciation for the arts, but ultimately, each other. At the time Reza had completed a degree in law from the London School of Economics and Sarvenaz had recently moved from Iran to pursue a degree in accounting. In 2008 they relocated to Dubai and immediately became part of the local arts community, befriending the likes of Maneli Keykavoussi, daughter of the late Iranian artist Farideh Lashai, The Third Line’s Sunny Rahbar, Ali Bakhtiar and artist Reza Aramesh. “I saw a work by Lashai at Maneli’s house in Bastakiya,” recalls Reza. “That was my first purchase in Dubai and then I started buying all sorts of things.” The couple’s eclectic collection is predominantly Iranian and includes works by artists such as Shahriar Ahmadi, Abbas Akhavan, Aramesh, Reza Derakshani, Ramin Haerizadeh, Parviz Tanavoli and Shahpour Pouyan, among others. HOW WERE YOU FIRST EXPOSED TO THE ARTS? R: I had very traditional parents so the kind of art I grew up with was decorative and mainly comprised handmade Persian tapestries from the 18th and 19th centuries as well as a couple of Qajar paintings, which I have held onto. It was either that or Chinese and European porcelain and glass, which adorned every mantelpiece in a typical Iranian home. Essentially, I grew up with colour and variety. S: My mother was a painter and insisted on me being trained as an artist. I started going to Aydin Aghdashloo, but it was on a visit to a friend’s house in London where I saw a painting and realised I really liked the idea. That painting grabbed me and made me realise that there could be a deeper meaning to art than it being just decorative. WHAT WAS IT LIKE ACQUIRING YOUR FIRST WORK IN DUBAI? R: I’ve had the bug for collecting for a very long time. I was already familiar with Farideh’s work, but then got the chance to meet her through Maneli. She was inspirational and I knew I just had to have one of her pieces. For me art is about engagement. A piece of art either talks to me, engages me or it doesn’t. I already had a great conversation going with Farideh’s works and meeting her put everything into context. S: It wasn’t until I met Reza that I thought of owning a piece. I think this work by Farideh is so dynamic. I feel it’s changing all the time and I don’t get tired of it. This page: Ramin Haerizadeh. Wonders Of Nature . 2006 – 07. C-print. 150 x 100 cm. Facing page: Sarvenaz and Reza with Farideh Lashai’s untitled work from 2006. Oil and acrylic on canvas. (Diptych) 150 x 100 cm each. “I don’t want to limit myself to just one region of the world. I want to see the world through the eyes of various artists.” sarvenaz sepehi 90 WHAT KIND OF WORKS DO YOU LIKE? S: There is subtlety in abstraction. I don’t like art that is in your face because I like to unravel things and discover new layers and meanings. R: I am also drawn towards abstract art, however, I keep an open mind. In my opinion, art is an expression of the artist’s life. We live in quite an interesting place and it just so happened that most of the artists we met and the art we liked were predominantly Iranian. HOW DID YOU START BUILDING YOUR COLLECTION? R: I bought works by Shahriar Ahmadi and Shahpour Pouyan very early on. I also bought a lot of photographs. In fact, Sarvenaz’s first present to me was a Kiarostami piece, which is one of his earlier works when he used to sign the photograph. For a while I was also giving Sarvenaz paintings that I liked as presents. I appeased her in that way and it worked in building my own collection! WHAT IS THE RESEARCH PROCESS LIKE? R: As our relationship became more serious, the consultation and the research process began to involve both of us. That’s when we started buying in depth. We acquired another Lashai, several artist books and a piece by Aramesh. To begin with there was no specific plan or direction and I bought whatever I enjoyed and liked. As a result, I have some pieces that I’m happy to keep under the bed. Now there is greater direction, as we are researching and collecting together. S: I try to visit as many art fairs and museums as possible. I love the Tate especially. I like diversity and I have a passion for Iranian and Middle Eastern art. However, I don’t want to limit myself to just one region of the world. I want to see the world through the eyes of various artists. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE DUBAI ART SCENE? R: It’s fantastic for the region because it has provided a platform for a lot of artists who would never have received this sort of international exposure and recognition otherwise. But it needs more life. I wish the Middle Eastern galleries would participate more in international fairs because they are the first port of call for the artists, after art school of course. Some galleries do have a global outlook, but they are only a This page: Left: Sarvenaz with (on the wall) Reza Derakshani’s Study For Day And Night . 2010. Mixed media on canvas. 100 x 100 cm. (On the table) Parviz Tanavoli’s Sitting Heech . 2007. Bronze. Variable dimensions. Inset: Shahrzad Changalvaee. Motherland #2 , from the Body Composition Remaining Within Limited Domain series. 2009 – 10. C-print. 95 x 145 cm. Edition of three plus one artist proof. Facing page (clockwise from left): Reza with Parvaneh Etemadi’s Still Life . 2012. Screen print. 70 x 50 cm; Abbas Akhavan. Study For A Map (Islands) – Unit F19 [zone 1] and Unit C15 [zone 3] 2010. Gold leaf on drywall. 60 x 60 cm each. Photography by Swetlana Gasetski. All images courtesy Capital D Studio, Dubai. 91 handful. I also think the auction houses have been impressive in terms of educating people about art from this region. WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO DO WITH YOUR COLLECTION? R: We want to refine what we have right now. We have quite a few pieces that we want to sell so we can buy some other works that we would love to have. We also want to increase our exposure to other artists from the region, which means going beyond Iranian art. Our collection is a reflection of our lives and since we are living in Dubai, it’s bizarre that we don’t have any Arab art. It is such a big gap in our collection and one which we need to fill. “Our collection is a reflection of our lives and since we are living in Dubai, it’s bizarre that we don’t have any Arab art. It is such a big gap in our collection and one which we need to fill.” r eza s epehi 92 ramy boutros This page: Ramy with Khaled Takreti’s Ramy . 2013. Oil on canvas. 260 x 331 cm. Facing page: Hussein Madi. Coupe de Cavaliers . 2012. Oil on canvas. 82 x 135 cm. F or Lebanese interior architect Ramy Boutros a sense of wonderment at what could be, instead of what is, can be traced back to some of his earliest memories: as a five-year old, he designed imaginary cities. On graduating from the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) in 2000 with a degree in interior architecture, Boutros found himself thirsty for knowledge, so took himself to Paris. It was here that he spent three years taking courses in furniture design, visiting ateliers, hunting through galleries for art and antiques, attending fairs such as TEFAF, the Armory Show and PAD, and learning how curators acquire and exhibit work. In 2005 Boutros launched his eponymous company and, three years later, first exhibited his furniture collection, followed by his jewellery designs. “My grandfather was an avid collector,” he explains. “He collected art that spoke to him and when I asked him questions he was always happy to share the stories behind the pieces he collected. I loved these stories and they helped me to understand and appreciate the works.” Today Boutros’s collection includes works by Nabil Nahas, Nadim Karam, Safwan Dahoul, Samia Halaby and MF Husain, among others. ramy boutros I know I want an artwork when: It starts a conversation in a language I understand and we start flirting. The work I could stare at for hours is: The Kiss by Gustav Klimt. Wish list: Kees van Dongen, Takashi Murakami and Anish Kapoor. The Middle Eastern art scene is: Pulsating. My earliest art memory is: My grandfather telling me stories about his art collection when I was five. The artwork that got away was: A painting by Shafic Abboud. 93 YOUR ARCHITECTURAL AND DESIGN PRACTICE CLEARLY OVERLAPS WITH YOUR LOVE OF ART, BUT WHAT INSPIRES YOU? I’m inspired by the exotic – and I don’t limit this to just Contemporary art. I collect Modernist pieces, as well as works from the 18th and 19th centuries. There has to be an inexplicable quality in a work, object or design idea to attract me – I love periods such as Neo-Greek, Japonism and Egyptomania, to name a few. My interiors and furniture, while inspired by the exotic, are not designed to be trendy or just for show. They incorporate the latest in modern comforts, technology and function so they can withstand the test of time. WHEN DID YOU REALISE YOU HAD BECOME A ‘COLLECTOR’? I don’t consider myself to be a collector! I buy art because I cannot do otherwise, it is as compelling to me as breathing. I don’t know what I will buy tomorrow, I just know that I will. I don’t buy to put together a collection. The idea of being a collector seems so limited, yet art to me is limitless. WHAT WAS THE FIRST PIECE YOU BOUGHT? I must have been 22 or 23 and came across a portrait of an Englishman wearing a maharajah costume, painted at the turn of the 20th century. The painting just drew me in, this Englishman with his blue eyes, wearing a turban with fantastic jewels, sitting on a red couch during the times of the British Raj – he had a story that I had to hear and retell. AND THE FIRST CONTEMPORARY MIDDLE EASTERN PIECE? A work by Safwan Dahoul. I’m in love with his paintings and his style because he has created an identity for himself. You can’t look at his work and say it’s after the style of somebody – Dahoul’s work is uniquely his. What I love about it is the Giaconda effect it has – his portraits’ eyes always seem to follow you around the room. “I don’t consider myself to be a collector! I buy art because I cannot do otherwise, it is as compelling to me as breathing.” 94 “An organic approach is also important as tastes evolve over time, so it is important that the space be timeless and flexible.” HOW IMPORTANT IS THE INTERACTION BETWEEN SPATIAL DESIGN AND ART? Very! The importance of displaying art correctly – as well as creating a space for it – is an art in itself, and I am as interested in designing space for art as I am interested in it. Finding out a client’s particular dream for their home and then collaborating to make it come true is a process that gives me great joy. The architectural concept, lighting, layout, flow and proportions must be harmonious. An organic approach is also important as tastes evolve over time, so it is important that the space be timeless and flexible. YOU TRAVEL A LOT – DO YOU FIND ART IN LOCAL MARKETS? Yes – I’m constantly running from country to country in search of art in all its forms. I believe you can find art in every market and in the most surprising of places. I visit as many galleries, exhibitions and museums as I can. I also believe that there are many artists still to be discovered. DO YOU EVER BEFRIEND THE ARTISTS? I am naturally curious and love people, but I don’t buy art because I am friends with the artist: I prefer the work to speak for itself. At the 95 This page: Ramy with (on the left wall) MF Husain. Maya V . 1973. Oil on canvas. 29.5 x 86.5 cm; (On the right wall) Gyula Tornai. Untitled. Undated. Oil on canvas. 65 x 47 x 7 cm; (On the table) Xavier Veilhan. Monceau . 2008. Polyurethane elastic painted wood. 170 x 85 x 50 cm. Inset: Farid Belkahia. (Detail) Arbre de vie . 1989. Oil on canvas. 63 x 83 cm. Facing page: Nabil Nahas. Fractals . 2012. Acrylic on canvas. 135 x 216.5 x 11 cm. Photography by Mansour Dib. © Canvas Archives. same time I understand that most artists value their privacy, space and time to create. An artist whose work I have been fortunate to acquire is Nabil Nahas. We live in the same apartment building, yet I used to go to various dealers to learn as much as possible about his work. He found out and approached me one day and said, “I’m your neighbour! Come and ask me anything you want about my work, don’t be shy.” So we became really good friends. Another artist whose friendship I greatly cherish is Khaled Takreti – I’d fallen in love with some of his pieces at Ayyam Gallery. I literally made them open the gallery on a weekend so I could purchase his works. This piqued Takreti’s curiosity, and he ended up visiting me in my home in Beirut and surprised me with one of his pieces. He’d said he wanted to create a Japanese screen – but it was in fact a painting of me! HOW HAVE YOU SEEN THE REGIONAL ARTS SCENE DEVELOP? The boom that we’ve seen, especially with all these museums under construction, has given the artists a boost of energy and creativity to do something and be part of this movement. I think that is important. The Middle East has not promoted and encouraged local artists the way artists are promoted in the West. We began a little later, so I find it really encouraging that there is so much innovation taking place now and how beautiful and amazing it all is. 96 rasha abu ghazaleh farouki Rasha abu ghazaleh farouki 97 “I had never given a thought to middle eastern art, before then [art dubai], but suddenly i felt a kind of explosion with all this middle Eastern art around me.” O f Palestinian heritage and born in Amman, Jordan, Rasha Abu Ghazaleh Farouki lived in the UAE, UK and Chile before studying for her bachelor’s degree in business and marketing in the USA. “As a student in Boston I was always visiting museums and galleries,” she recalls, “and when my parents came to see me we’d go to auctions and antique stores. The way I was exposed to art was organic and casual, and that’s the type of art collector that I’ve become.” Following graduation, Farouki worked in advertising for a year between Amman and Beirut before moving to London where she did her masters. On returning to Amman she worked in advertising again before getting married and living in Dubai for four years. In 2009 she moved back to the Jordanian capital, where she is now a mother and co-owner with her sister of the boutique Sketch, which specialises in women’s clothing. DID YOU GROW UP WITH ART AROUND YOU? My parents love to collect and our family home was full of antiques. Although I didn’t really get involved with my parents’ art, I appreciated what they bought. Whenever I see a Monet painting, it immediately makes me think of my mother. She loves that kind of art – classical landscapes, great use of colour – and that is what I, in a contemporary sense, look for in art. HOW DID YOU START COLLECTING? There was never a point at which I decided, “I want to be an art collector”. After I got married and moved to Dubai I bought a Campana Brothers stuffed animal chair. It set the tone, in the sense that I want to surround myself with art that makes me happy. Everything is aesthetic rather than philosophical for me. When people visit our house they always say, “I love this, who is this?” It’s never been, “Hmm what does this mean...” I like to surround myself with things that have joy in them and I tend to stay away from art that has darker themes. My husband Ali and I believe that if you’re living with an artwork, it’s got to exude an energy that you feel comfortable with. WHAT WERE YOUR FIRST ACQUISITIONS? The Campana Brothers chair, at my first Art Dubai fair, where I also bought a Youssef Nabil self-portrait and a Hassan Hajjaj work. I had never given a thought to Middle Eastern art before then, but suddenly I felt a kind of explosion with all this Middle Eastern art around me. That’s kind of where things started. I was buying by gut instinct rather than making educated purchases, but I’ve moved on since. Now we do research! ANY FAVOURITE MEDIUM? I love photography, it totally speaks to me. There is something about a well-composed photograph that really draws you in. We have a beautiful work by Yto Barrada, who I think is an amazing artist and photographer. I also really like Bouchra Khalili, who has great breadth of colour and composition. Her Constellations are wonderful. I certainly see myself purchasing works like that in the future. This page: Youssef Nabil’s (above) Self-Portrait Looking Out Of The Window, Paraty and (below) Self- Portrait Looking With Sunset, Rio De Janeiro . 2005. Hand-coloured gelatin print. 27 x 40 cm. Facing page: Rasha with Hassan Hajjaj’s Coiffeur . 2000. C-print, walnut wood frame and found objects. 136 x 93.5 cm. 98 This spread: Rasha and her husband Ali Farouki with Yto Barrada’s Déjeuner Sur l’Herbe, Perdicaris Forest, Rmilet, Tangier. 2007. C-print. 150 x 150 cm. Inset: Timo Nasseri. Glance #10 2013. Poloshed stainless steel. 254 x 236.2 x 53.3 cm. Photography by Benoît Almeras. © Canvas Archives. “the way i purchase art now is indicative of this change, in that it’s no longer on a whim. today everything is thought out, calculated and done with a purpose.” My favourite works in my collection: Works by Yto Barrada and Timo Nasseri. Wish list: Never ending. Art motto: Don’t buy on Instagram. The Middle Eastern art scene is: At a crossroads. My earliest art memory was: My mother showing me works of her favorite Chilean artist Claudio Bravo. The artwork I will get by hook or by crook: A Warhol/Basquiat collaboration that is hanging in my father’s office. 99 WHY DO YOU COLLECT ART? I want to surround myself with beautiful things that I enjoy being with and I want my children to do the same. That’s why I would never buy a piece, no matter what it cost or who’s advising me to get it, if it didn’t move me in some way. WHERE DO YOU BUY? Through art fairs and galleries. I’m lucky to have friends who work in the art world and they send me recommendations. I think The Third Line is an incredible gallery. I regularly visit their website and check out what’s going on. We live in a time when you can buy art very easily. There are so many outlets from where you can get information about artists and their work, unlike before. HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHAT TO BUY? My husband Ali wasn’t involved in my first purchase but then he got hooked and now we decide together. We’re currently building our new home, a project that started two years ago and to which every art decision is now tied. We visualise where each potential new acquisition will go, how the light will fall, how it will fit with our other works etc. The house and the art need to go together. We bounce ideas off one another, but if I love something and Ali doesn’t, I can’t bring myself to convince him. We both have to live with it. Fortunately we have very similar tastes when it comes to art. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR COLLECTION? It has one main theme: happy art. Colourful, striking and certainly more aesthetic than it is intellectual or academic. The polar opposite of me, in fact! HAS BUYING ART CHANGED YOU? I look at myself when I started collecting and feel like I’ve grown up so much since then. My life has changed a lot, plus there was that first Art Dubai and the first Christie’s sale. It’s like I’m looking at someone else. The way I purchase art now is indicative of this change, in that it’s no longer on a whim. Today everything is thought out, calculated and done with a purpose. 100 Tarek shamma tarek shamma B orn in London in 1981 to Egyptian parents, Tarek Shamma grew up in Cairo but returned to the British capital in 1999 to study architecture at the Architectural Association. “I wanted to study art,” Shamma recalls, “but my mother’s response was, ‘Over my dead body!’” After a time out following a car accident, he worked for India Mahdavi in Paris and then for Zaha Hadid before resuming his studies and graduating. Now a practicing architect, he has a particular interest in design and has lived with art for all his life. In the late 1980s his mother, aunt and grandfather set up Cairo’s Extra Gallery, designed to promote Egyptian artists and craftsmen. “The gallery had great works by Seif Wanly, Adam Henein and Ragheb Ayad, so I grew up with those in view,” Shamma remembers. 101 I’d love to dine with: Raqib Shaw. I would pay monthly instalments forever for: Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden Of Earthly Delights. My favourite work in my collection: The Credo by Fremiet. An artist I think is undervalued or underpublicised: Adrian Villar Rojas. I know I should like but I just can’t: Marlene Dumas. Best art advice I ever got: Collect what you like. “It’s always important to train your eye, but also accept that your tastes change over time.” WHO WERE THE FORMATIVE INFLUENCES ON YOUR ART EDUCATION? Certainly my parents, who were collectors of objects, but also my maternal grandfather. He was man of great curiosity and once found a Man Ray work in Cairo. His house was wonderful, full of amazing objects and furniture. We were encouraged to appreciate, but never allowed to touch. Instead, he’d bring a book or catalogue and explain it; he was a man of incredible knowledge. He loved rearranging everything, things would disappear and reappear a few months later, every piece with its own story. I remember him saying, “It was difficult after the Revolution as everything was taken, but I managed to buy this piece.” Sadly, by the time we both could fully appreciate one another he’d had a stroke and so I missed out on many conversations that could have been had. WHAT WERE YOUR FIRST ARTWORKS? The first serious work I owned was a painting by Marcel Gromaire from 1951, given to me on my 21st birthday. I was working for Zaha Hadid and was never out of the studio, so I saved money and bought a photograph, Hall Of 33 Bays – Time Exposed , by one of my favorites, Sugimoto. I love photography and think it is incredible how you can convey so much through one technique. Great works of art have an aesthetic sensibility, a thesis and are technically perfect. Those three variables combined really draw you in, such as when I saw an exhibition of Thomas Demand and understood his painstaking construction; the compositions are incredible but only make sense in photographic form. This page: Adam Henein. Ritual 2. 1985. Bronze sculpture. 9.9 x 10.3 x 72.7 cm. Photography by Tarek Shamma. Facing page: Tarek with Eric and Heather ChanSchatz’s PTG.102 . 2008. Screen print on silk and mirror polished stainless steel with etching. 213.5 x 290 cm. 102 WHAT ELSE DO YOU LIKE? I love works by Timo Nasseri – the architect in me really admires his precision. I also love Cy Twombly. Even though his work looks like chaos it’s actually very controlled and that’s important to me, an ap- preciation heightened by Rolland Barthe’s essay explaining the work as a form of writing. One early piece I bought was by Eric and Heather ChanSchatz, who were showing at the Albion. I liked their large compositions made of smaller, aggregated glyph components. The colours were quite striking, even if a bit out of my comfort zone. HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT BUYING ART? It’s as and when it happens. I try to maximise my exposure by going to exhibitions and reading, everything is online. Auction catalogues are also great. I play a game with my mother and aunt at art fairs: we pretend we have a set budget and figure out how to spend it. It’s always important to train your eye, but also accept that your tastes change over time. AT WHAT POINT DID YOU START CALLING YOURSELF A COLLECTOR? I find it arrogant to call myself a collector, to be honest. For me, collect- ing is something that has grown organically and from listening to myself. If I buy, I hope it is forever. The story is always extremely important to me. When I was designing a Madrid store for Christian Louboutin, he was collaborating with David Lynch to create a series of unwearable fetish shoes. David took amazing photographs in which the technique, shadows and narrative are all very strong. DOES EVERY PIECE YOU OWN HAVE A NARRATIVE? Absolutely. My collection comprises pieces with their own narra- tives, rather than being a group of works with a unifying focus or theme. For example, I designed Selma Feriani’s booth at Art Dubai one year and she offered me a photograph by Sama Al-Shaibi. Or rather, a photographic series of missiles. At first all I saw were sim- ple forms making strong architectural compositions. Then I realised This page: Tarek with (on the wall) Miao Xiaochun’s Industrial World . 1999. C-print. 127 x 252 cm and (in the foreground) a hand from a sculpture of a Cambodian earth Buddha. Facing page: Above: Hiroshi Sugimoto. Hall Of 33 Bays – Time Exposed , from the Buddha series. 1995. Black and white photograph. 50.8 x 61 cm. Below: Sama Al-Shaibi. Close Support , from the Warhead series. 2009. Pigment print on cotton rag. 110 x 74 cm. Edition of five. Photgraphy by Palden MacGamwell, unless otherwise specified. © Canvas Archives. 103 these innocuous items were warheads, creating a very charged narrative. Talking about seemingly familiar subjects in new and differing ways always intrigues me. WHICH PERIODS OF ART DO YOU PARTICULARLY ENJOY? I really like the Egyptian Modernists, because – again – there’s a narra- tive involved. As a child, my parents once bought a Mahmoud Mokhtar painting of a woman at an auction in Paris. It hangs in their salon and still fascinates me. It is such a pure and strong work and intrinsically Egyp- tian. I grew up seeing other works of his, such as his sculpture of Saad Zaghloul. A lot of public art. As Egyptians we no longer seem to respect or encourage our wonderful history and heritage, which I find sad. HOW DO YOU SEE YOURSELF HELPING TO TACKLE THIS PROBLEM? My dream is to set up an arts-and-crafts foundation in Egypt to prompt a conversation differentiating art from arts and crafts, both equally impor- tant. I’d like to see more dialogue between 21st century designers and craftsmen working with traditional techniques. I would like to apply my knowledge and skills to implement something constructive. “My dream is to set up an arts- and-crafts foundation in Egypt to prompt a conversation differentiating art from arts and crafts, both equally important.” 104 B orn and raised in Damascus, Maya Samaan Jalbout moved to Beirut three years ago after studying architecture in Damascus and interior design in Montreal. “I wanted to do interior architecture, but I thought I’d start with architecture itself,” she recalls. “I’ve always had a passion for art and design and so did a lot of history of art courses alongside the architecture.” Whilst in Canada Jalbout worked as an advisor on interior design, was involved in several commercial and residential projects and then, with a friend, founded the company Artiform. “Our main purpose was to do interiors and import furniture from the Middle East, especially high-quality mother-of-pearl pieces,” she explains. “We did a few shows at fairs and, in 2003, started an art show with the Festival du Monde Arabe, to which we brought Syrian artists to exhibit.” Thereafter, Jalbout was involved in several exhibitions featuring Syrian artists such as Mustafa Ali, Saad Yagan, Hammoud Shantout, Lutfi Rumhein and Sara Shamma. “It was a great way to promote Syrian art in Canada,” she recalls, “as even Syrians who were living there didn’t know about these artists.” More a way of supporting the artists of her homeland than a commercial enterprise, these shows also enabled Jalbout to develop her own art collection. MAYA samaan JALBOUT MAYA samaan JALBOUT 105 This page: Fateh Moudarres. Untitled. 1961. Ink on paper. 30 x 20 cm. Facing page: Maya with Omar Hamdi’s untitled work from 2012. Oil on canvas. 100 x 100 cm. DID YOU GROW UP WITH ART AROUND YOU? We had a few pieces at home, paintings by Moudarres and Nasser Nabaa, for example. Like all Syrians in the 1970s, my parents bought such works and we grew up with them. No one knew then what they’d be worth today and how important they would become. WHAT WAS THE FIRST PIECE OF ART YOU ACQUIRED? When I was 19, I helped a gallerist in Syria organise a show at the Shera- ton Hotel and instead of being paid for my work, I asked for a Moudarres piece, which he offered to me at a good price. Having lived with all that art for two weeks, I felt the desire to have one of the works myself. After getting one, you want another. It’s a collector’s disease! It started then and it hasn’t stopped. From then on, whenever I had any spare money, I’d buy little paintings. Before buying furniture for my house, I’d buy art. WHAT CAME NEXT? I bought a few other pieces by artists such as Mustafa Ali and Zuhair Hasib, and maintained contact with the Arab art scene during visits home. I’d try to buy at least one or two pieces on each trip. The artists became friends and each piece reminds me of a particular time, place and happy memories. WHAT’S THE MAIN FOCUS OF YOUR COLLECTION? The wider Middle East, but particularly Syria. My husband is Lebanese and he became an art lover because of me, so I realise that now we have to buy Lebanese art for him! Although art has no nationality and I don’t buy for nationalistic reasons, we do have so much talent in Syria. Now that I am in Lebanon and being exposed to its artists, I’m seeing some amazing work here too. The artists I really love at the moment are Marwan Sahmarani and Zena Assi. “When I need longer, or seek other people’s opinions, it means I need a push and that it’s not really coming from me.” 106 I am a young collector because: I have been collecting art since I was 19 years old. I am still young and have a long way to go. The work I could stare at for hours is: Any artwork that could speak to my soul. My wish list: Marwan Sahmarani. My earliest art memory: A visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, where I tried to ‘play the guide’ to some friends. The first thing I do when I buy a new piece: Just look at it and enjoy it for some time before it finds its place. The artist’s name I can never pronounce is: Cerith Wyn Evans.