Meet Yalla’s latest Rising Star, Romy Khayat, a student at the American Community School. Romy is a very talented artist with a great body of artwork at only 14 years of age. Yalla sat down for a Q&A with the budding artist.
Name and age:
Hello, my name is Romy Khayat and I am 14 years old.
How long have you been interested in art, and what is it that you love about it?
I have been interested in art since I was just a kid. When I was only 1 year old, I received as a gift, a box of art supplies – with colored pencils, crayons and some paint. I have a picture of me that I love, painting with my hands on a paper.
I have always enjoyed doing art, because I feel it’s such a relaxing and creative thing to do when I am stressed. Art allows me to feel, imagine and create what I want and make my dream come true.
When I was in 3rd grade, we made collages of cities, and mine was chosen as the best. Also, in 4th grade, we had to paint a one-point perspective drawing, and I won the first prize and received a lot of praise from my teachers.
What are some techniques you’ve learned at school this year?
This year, in my art class at school, I have experienced a variety of techniques. In creating ‘The Peacock’, I enjoyed using different printmaking techniques like linoleum block printing, screen printing, foam block printing, and few other techniques. After the printmaking part, I needed to collage the prints I made onto a peacock that is about one meter long.
In another project, I needed to paint a tennis player, and the player had to look abstract. I needed to first, outline her figure on the canvas with gesso, and then spray paint the whole board by making lines with wide masking tape using 3 different colours. I used blue, green, and yellow. I have used gesso to create reliefs and reusing it over the spray paint created a contrast. Then, I have also used a little of black paint all around her to show action in tennis playing.
In my next project, I have produced a mosaic piece that shows a picture of Venice. I have reproduced this image by using different mosaic techniques.
One of my artworks made at school this year was inspired by Louise Nevelson and Vincent Van Gogh. I visited the Vincent Alive exhibition and got inspired by it to make one of the compartments of my Louise Nevelson artwork be the ‘Church At Auvers’.
For another artwork, I went to the Mina Fish Market and took pictures of different sea creatures, to combine each creature and make one whole. I combined a lobster, a squid, a crab, a shrimp and a fish.
What are your key achievements?
I participated in the Junior Fine Arts Festival, in Dubai, when I was in 8th grade. This year, I participated in the MESAC Senior Fine Arts in New Delhi, and I was the youngest selected visual artist to participate in this arts festival.
Recently, I illustrated the cover page and three other drawings in the book ‘The Sprinting Leopard’ by Reyna Berry and Olivia Bolz.
Also, one of my favourite paintings – ‘The Fox’ was selected and included in the ACS calendar for the year 2017-2018. I also actively participated in many mural paintings at the school.
What are your aspirations for the future?
For my future, I am planning to go into something that has to do with design, possibly architecture, because I really enjoy taking my creative ideas from art and applying them to designing things. I am definitely going to continue with art, as a hobby at least.
One of my favourite paintings, ‘The Fox’, was selected and included in the ACS 2017-2018 calendar.
Advice for children that are interested in taking up art as a hobby:
I believe that art is a wonderful way to have fun and try new and different techniques. There are plenty of workshops adults and children can participate in; like the Louvre’s workshops, or Manarat Al Saadiyat, Warehouse421 in Mina port, and many more.
Children that are interested in art should definitely pursue this passion, by painting or drawing during specific and set timings – I set specific times in the weekend, to draw and paint. Children interested in art should also take advantage of the internet to learn new techniques.
