Personal Details: Name: Khalid Abdulla Al-Muharraqi Age: 32 Nationality: Bahraini Degree: Visual Communication- The Art Institute of Houston. (8 Years in Total) Website: http://www.muharraqi-studios.com

Khalid Al-Muharraqi the professional artist, animator, designer, visualizer and developer who is currently the only Arab artist listed on Lightwave 3D developer NewTek's website. Maxon has used some of his work in the marketing campaign for their various products including Bodypaint 3D. Khalid inherited art from his highly acclaimed father; Abdulla Al-Muharraqi, and is involved with various genres of arts and media.

O3D: How did you get into the world of graphics?
Khalid: My father has a history in design and illustration for he is a well-known artist in the middle east, I think that he is the main reason that influenced me to get into art and design, other than that, I have worked in the USA for a while as assistant to a director for the Cartoon Network, I was doing poster designs for plays in California, at the same time was painting airbrush paintings for the Royal Court in Bahrain.

O3D: Could you please tell us more about your father?
Khalid: There is a lot to say about him and I don't think that I can ever satisfy what he deserves. My father is a painter, a designer, a cartoonist, a decorator, and he has done many of the things around us, a great example is the actual logo on the flag of the United Arab Emirates, it was created by him almost 20 years ago or more, all the emblems for the movement in the army, money notes and coins in Bahrain and he has also painted all the royalties in the Gulf area including the Sultan Qaboos, all the rules have his illustrations in their palaces including the old rules of Iraq Saddam Husain.

And regardless of all the paintings that he has done all around the world in embassies in the US, the UK, France, etc, he continues to stick to his cartoons as they seem to this most direct way of expressing his point for he works in two newspapers; Gulf Daily News and Albayan in the United Arab Emirates.

For more information about him you can view this page:
http://www.bahrainguide.org/BG3/muharraqi.html

O3D: Other than your father, who else inspired you?
Khalid: I have also been inspired by the environment in which I live. For example, the morning sunlight and sunset look different in different parts of the world and my work reflects the unique skies, planes, animals and arts found in Bahrain; the place where I grew up. I have gotten very passionate about the 3D world in the last three years and I was very much influenced by movies like Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, Final Fantasy, The Matrix, and Lord of the Rings. I also expose myself a lot to the gaming industry and among my favourites are Metal Gear Solid from Konami and Resident Evil from Capcom.

At first I did not like the idea of using technology in my art but it only took me six month to get over my prejudice. I think that what is happening right now in the art world is a good collaboration between technology and human creativity. A designer without practical art experience would not be able to create the same standard of work using animation software as someone with an artistic eye. My personal favourite artists include James Clyne, Jose Oli and Francisco Cortina.

O3D: What is your greatest accomplishments?
Khalid: This question is hard to answer, but I will give it a try. I guess I would say that I haven't accomplished anything yet, I have just recently started my real artistic work. I spent seven years previously doing commercial work and even though it is known that commercial work is fast and money oriented it is this that kills the art within the artist. I realised that what I want to do is accomplish the right thing for the artist community and dedicate my life for the people by giving them the courage and guidance to help them succeed to be better artists. I admit that I am far from that goal and I am at the tip of the bottle, but I hope that God gives me the strength to continue my quest in helping open doors to our nation. We are historically artistic and we do have many creators, I just hope that we manage to show this again toe the world as a new history.

I usually right updates on my newsletter, unfortunately this is two months old, I am working on the new-one will be out maybe next-month.
http://www.muharraqi-studios.com/news-letter.html

O3D: Is graphics design your official career?
Khalid: It is and it isn't at the same time. I think art does not have any limitations, art is everywhere, so naming my career in one direction does not really give you the right answer, we change with time and Artist find them selves far away from the point of start, for example I did Interior Decoration for 3 years of my life, then got into photography and advertising, I am into anything that is artistic these days.

O3D: In one paragraph, what do you think of the status of art in the Arab world?
Khalid: Honestly,we are way Behind! Simply because our countries do not support these talents, other countries pay to push, lets hope that things will get better.

O3D: Do you have any final advice to give to the new and developing artists and graphic designers?
Khalid: My advice to them would be to tell that that they will only get better with the amount of time they spend trying and working, a few days back an artist from Europe asked me, 'Can I ever get better?" I replied to him asking, "How many hours do you work?" He said, 'One hour a day, then I do my studies." Then I said, "I work for at least 11 hours on my 3D work per-day.". It is always up to you to push your self to the next level, you can be as good as you give, and that is the simplest way to say it. I hope to see more artists out there, we need to get more people on teams for the upcoming projects, but only the best will qualify. So work hard and get better so we can all work on developing this part of the world. Good luck to all.

Oman3D would like to thank Khalid Al-Muharraqi for this great interview, we are proud to have the honour to interview such a great Arab designer.

© Oman3D.com - The Creative Adventure - December 2004
© Muharraqi Studios owns the copyright to all sketches and 3D renders.