Materials: acrylic paint on wood
Dimensions: 34 cm W x 38 cm H
Year Made: 2019
Status: Collection of the Artist (Not for Sale)
Memories of My Childhood is a piece that carries multiple levels of meaning for me. This painting holds memories from my current life as well as memories from my childhood. It symbolizes a blend of good and difficult memories.
I created it in 2019 during a workshop led by Emirati Artist Shaikha Al Ketbi at Warehouse 421 in Abu Dhabi. My best friend and I were excited to attend the workshop. Up until this point, my interactions at art galleries had mainly been with the art and never directly with the artist. In this workshop, we got to speak with Shaikha Al Ketbi and learn about her creative process directly from her. Looking at this piece reminds me of my excitement over meeting and speaking with a professional artist. I was admittedly geeking out a bit. I will also cherish the time I spent with my best friend during the workshop. Much of Shaikha Al Ketbi’s work focuses on recollection and memory. She shared a quick presentation of her work and then walked us through an exercise meant to spark specific memories.
Memories of my childhood is a self-portrait that captures a few specific elements of my childhood. The face is not complete, which represents that this image is of myself as I view it in my mind’s eye. As a child, my grandmother had a dressing table with her perfume bottles lined up along the mirror. When I played dress up, she would let me sit at the table and choose a splash of perfume. She would then get a jewelry box filled with costume jewelry. While most of the jewelry was hers, some of it belonged to my great-grandmother ( her mother). The jewelry box felt like a treasure chest filled with the finest of jewels. Sometimes, my grandmother would tell me stories about her mother and her childhood. As an adult, I still prefer costume jewelry to the real thing. I think in large part that this is due to these memories of playing with my grandmother’s costume jewelry. In this painting, I wear a very tight emerald necklace. Emeralds were one of my grandmother’s favorite jewels. At the time I painted this, I felt I made a mistake with how tight the necklace is painted around the neck. Now I wonder if this represents that my relationship with my grandmother was not always an easy one. Both my grandmother and my mother liked to sew. My grandmother liked quilting. My mother preferred embroidery. My grandmother taught my mother how to sew clothing. The sewing machine, needle, and thread are references to the skills they taught me, which have become part of my current art practice.
We mostly focused on drawing the images during the workshop. I finished the piece at home with acrylic paint in the bright pinks, blues, greens, and yellows that I prefer in my paintings. While I now use yellow as a complementary color in my work, it is a color that represents anxiety for me. My grandmother chose it as a favorite color for me when I was very young. I can’t remember the exact age, but I know it was before I started school. I was told I needed to stand out from the crowd and that most girls would choose pink as a favorite color. Yellow was not as common. My grandmother was concerned I might be considered plain. At the time, it was easier for me to go along with her than to start a fight. I have a distinct memory of the conversation. If we were to have this conversation today, I would have said she was trying to help me create a brand for my self-image. My grandmother was very aware of appearance and a woman’s place in society. Looking back, I know she was trying to prepare me for life as a woman based on her own experiences.
Creating this piece reminded me how much I enjoy painting on wood. One of my first paintings as a child was a still life of a pear, painted on a scrap of wood during a painting workshop. I can vividly recall my mother displaying it on the family piano for many years. Every time I see this piece, I am reminded that I should find some scrap wood to paint on again.
This piece is featured in the August 2026 edition of the Wild Thread Collective Zine, titled A Self-Portrait Drawing without a Face.