The Bahraini traditional art of decorating dresses with gold embroidery will be the focus of an art exhibition by renowned artist Buthaina Fakhro.

The event, entitled 'The Music of the Kurar,' will be held on Thursday at the Bahrain National Museum, Manama, under the patronage of Shaikha Sabeeka bint Ebrahim Al Khalifa, wife of His Majesty King Hamad and chairwoman of Supreme Council for Women.

Her paintings show the hands of women working with threads, which she says are like a musician's hand playing with strings.

'My imagination takes me to places I've never been to and when I look at these women it's like they are playing music with the threads,' said Fakhro.

Fakhro said she was inspired when she started visiting a kurar house in Muharraq.

'I was immediately taken by the women's hand movements as they ornamented the textiles and moved in harmony,' said the artist.

Fakhro began to experiment with new printing methods and explore possibilities of using different media when she came back to Bahrain after attending the Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, the UK.

'I focused on the possibilities of printing on tiles and the extent to which the medium could lend itself to expression. For my first attempts, I chose specific themes, parts of which could be depicted on single tiles,' she said.

The series focuses on collections of jewellery, date palms, textiles and camels, all relating to the heritage of Bahrain and its people.

'My fascination with the old design of Bahraini jewellery was reflected in the blend of shapes and colours I selected in the new designs,' said Fakhro.

'Date palms were always at the fore of my interest and the trees rested elegantly on the small square's surfaces, along with textiles and camels,' she added.

When she started working on this collection, she opted two methods which included listening to her mother's old stories about the kurar in Bahrain and their methods.

'I wanted to produce something that the people of Bahrain and beyond could communicate with. I wanted others to share my experiment and to appreciate the work done by the kurar women,' she said.-TradeArabia News Service