Gazelle

The portrait is an exploration of the relationship between animal and human, portrayed through the poetry of our culture, where a beautiful woman is often described as a ‘gazelle’. The work is inspired by a poem by H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates) in which he compares the eyes of his beloved to those of a gazelle. Maitha Demithan's technique is based on scanography, which requires direct access to and very close contact with animals. It is a technique she has developed via working with animals (e.g. birds and owls); the scanner is placed on the animal but the light source is never exposed to the eyes. The portraits are therefore a digital mixed media combination of scanography, photography and drawing that ends up as a digital file to be printed. (Commissioned by Tashkeel)