Combining a past and present mode: Kuwaiti digitalized canvasses as a method in creative possibilities and pedagogical practice

ABSTRACT

This article explores the images of a Kuwaiti graphic designer and artist trained in the West who combines traditional methods with New Media technique. His practice engages modern and postmodern paradigms and, while his method suggests further ‘possibilities’, visual outcomes have a didactic purpose that may be applied to the teaching studio. The works under consideration present a unique direction in that meaning is conveyed through the digitalized ‘human figure’, figuration traditionally contested in Islam. However, it is through the lens of history that these elongated figures are being used as political tools to reclaim memories of past traditions about to disappear due to the hastening of ‘late capitalism’ and consumer society.

KEYWORDS:

• modernist studio
• constructing
• digital software applications
• globalization
• Islamic aniconism
• postmodern allegory
• Occupy Wall Street movements