Fatma Abdullah Lootah

Fatma Abdullah Lootah

The artist Fatma Lootah resides in Verona, Italy and she's working on this project from her studio there. She left the UAE in 1979 on a journey that ended in residing in Verona. She has exhibited internationally in places such as Italy, France, Switzerland, and Bahrain. She has also exhibited nationally in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah.

Her life in Europe has added some elements to her soul as an Emarati artist as she brings in an international eye to Emarati art.

Fatma does not impose her paintings, she lets the viewer appreciate and interpret; yet indicating that it is her "inner fire" which she lays on the canvas

Fatma Abdullah Lootah

Born in May 1955
Education - Academy of Fine Arts / University of Baghdad

Under the fire of colours
by Anthony Papalia ,Le Figaro, May 2002

Mix mischief and exuberance, add a zest of frankness, sprinkle with talent, shake, pour here is Fatma Lootah, artist from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Leaving her country in 1979 “to see something else”, she goes and studies Art in Washington and is trained for three years to drawing, portrait and above all, painting, her favourite way of expression. Fatma Lootah needs to discover the mass, which is what makes the richness of her art.
After her American stay, she flies to Italy where the city of Verona welcomes her with open arms : “Verona is extraordinary, its artistic potential is phenomenal”. That is so true that she still lives and paints there. Her workshop is her secret hideout.


She always paints alone, in an artistic and bodily frenzy : “I love applying the colour with my hand or my foot and feel my creation with my whole being”.
The canvas lays on the floor for Fatma Lootah never paints vertically. She paints fast for her paintings are emotions, feelings, impulsiveness. She does not fear colours and mixes them in unthinkable harmonies, contrasting hot and cold, red, yellow, blue, purple.
The artist does not impose her painting, she lets the amateur appreciate and interprete, yet precising it is her “inner fire” she lays on the canvas, for the public’s joy seeing furtive figures, underwater landscapes or lagoons at sunset, desert visions and mirages of the Orient.

It is in the Galerie Art 3, at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower, that she has chosen to hang up some paintings of her previous exhibition at UNESCO. The four themes, Light, Veils Dance, Blue Extasy and Song of Colours, are a fantasy of coloured richness, reflecting her “painting in action” in blurred shadows, furious waves, multicoloured breakings over unreal landscapes.
According to Hussein Ghubash, Ambassador Permanent Delegate of the United Arab Emirates to UNESCO, expressing his will to further cultural exchanges with France, Fatma Lootah, renowned artist in the whole Arab world, “represents the Arab female artists ; she shows another face of Islam. Our country supports all the artists and women represent 70% of our students”.
Fatma Lootah affirms that Dubai is still in her heart, she will be travelling there next summer. “I like all the big cities for I can watch people. I wander and make the most beautiful encounters”. And when asked what message she would like to tell French people, she sighs with a charming smile “love”.

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