A nonconformist at heart when it comes to art. Amna Ali Reda is Jeddah’s bohemian rhapsody. Bright and bold, exuding energy and down-to-earth, friendly, direct, and dedicated is what she’s all about. Amna’s sanctuary strikes you as mono-chromatic upon entrance, and shortly later transforms into a striking scene with splashes of red and green.
Her world is her family, and her art. Amna focuses her energy and strength to one passion at a time, in order to dedicate her maximum, undivided attention. She paints because she is passionate about it. “I paint to express myself”, says Amna. Her designs are not guarded by what interests’ people, but by what she wants to express.
Amna, a natural-born artist, left Jeddah at the age of 8, and traveled to France and Switzerland for further education. Renowned art school, Ecole des Beaux Art in Switzerland , known to be downright and direct, was home to developing her artistic talents, and Amna was one of the 6 who made it through the five year course, and graduated from amongst 63 students.
Having lived most of her life abroad, she returned to Jeddah, and decided that she wanted to get in touch with her Saudi roots and offer something to the community. The contribution, in her opinion, revives Saudi heritage and culture, and this pride is something she would like to instill in her children.
Amna’s patterns revolve around two styles where one style is a combination of animal prints and motifs of her choice which she collects, and the second being working with local styles, prints and heritage. When it comes to her work, Amna believes in preparation where she feels a lot of research goes into her paintings. The technical part of her artwork consists of gathering various images and motifs, and selecting what she feels most inspired by. Her designs are created from parts of images she finds interesting around her. She likes to choose her own canvas, and she prepares them to work her magic.
“The value of a piece of art is connected with how much one appreciates it, one should not connect money to the value of the art,” says Amna when it comes to pricing art in general. Her pet peeve is that artists are not given full credit for their work, especially when they have to exhibit their work in mass, resulting in not allowing the art lover to appreciate the artists’ work and concentrate on the fine details- leading to lesser recognition than deserved.
“It’s all about expressing the inner you, and voila- you make your magic happen.”