Childhood Memories

Aptly titled Childhood Memories this work represents Bahraini painter Balqees Fakhro’s breakthrough series in the mid 1990s where the artist begins to establish herself as a pioneer of the regional art scene. For the first few decades of her career, Fakhro’s paintings primarily featured figurative Bahraini landscapes and townscapes. Since the early 2000s, the artist’s work has been steeped in earth-toned abstract colour fields. Childhood Memories, like most of her work produced between 1993 and 1999, feature elements of both townscapes and abstract realities. Her work abstracts traditional facades found in Gulf architecture by eliminating any sense of depth and incorporating unexpected colour hues. Fakhro’s art incorporates broad swathes of almost muted colours and textures that evoke the weathered walls of long-forgotten places, all inspired by Fakhro's memories of Bahrain before its rapid urbanisation.