For Salman al-Malek, every painting begins with a memory.
A glimpse of brightly coloured fabrics beneath black abayas.
The familiar faces of mothers and sisters in a close-knit neighbourhood.
The birds that fascinated him as a child.
Decades later, these images continue to appear in his work.
In the latest episode of Artists’ Voices, a video series produced by Qatar Museums (QM), the veteran Qatari artist and caricaturist reflects on a life devoted to art and the memories that continue to shape his work.
“When I paint, I search for myself,” al-Malek says in the documentary. “My inner self. I try to move away from the physical world to step back from my surroundings. What brings me to this gentle ‘trance’ is painting.”
He notes that the story began long before galleries and exhibitions.
It started in the fareej, the traditional neighbourhood where he grew up.
“I’ve always felt I carried a visual archive inside me,” he said. “A visual archive of a child who grew up in a fareej. A child would grow up in a neighbourhood that felt like one big family.”
“My visual memory is tied to so many things that helped me rediscover that memory and turn it into themes I paint today,” the artist added.
The fareej left such a lasting impression that al-Malek said he would gladly return to that period of his life.
“I’d return to it even for brief moments, just to live it again,” he stated.
Years before his work was exhibited in galleries, al-Malek was known simply as “The Painter” among neighbours and classmates.
Encouragement from his teachers helped strengthen his confidence in his talent.
“It was the constant praise from my teachers, the art teachers in my early school years,” he recalled.
“I’d always see a glimmer in their eyes, a kind of satisfaction,” al-Malek said. “That approval was a special moment for me. It fed my pride, but at the same time, it reassured me that I was moving in the right direction.”
Equally important was his father’s support.
Although he initially viewed drawing as a hobby that brought joy to his son, he found his own way of encouraging him.
Working in an engineering office for an oil company, he would bring home black ink and drawing pens.
“He saw the joy in my eyes whenever he did, and that became his way of supporting me,” al-Malek said.
He stressed that pursuing art was never in doubt.
“My determination to pursue art was genuine,” the artist said. “There was never even a one-in-a-million chance that I would study another field.”
Not everyone shared his confidence.
When he decided to travel to Cairo to study art, many questioned his choice.
“They would ask, ‘You’re going to study art? What will you do afterwards? What will art give you after graduation?’ Those questions always shocked me and sometimes weakened my morale,” he recalled.
Among the memories al-Malek recalled, one stands out above all others: the opening of his first solo exhibition in 1985.
By then, his father was in the final years of his life.
After arriving at the exhibition and seeing visitors gathered around the artworks, he turned to his son and asked: “Are all these people here to see your pictures?”
Al-Malek smiled and told him that they were.
“He was so happy,” the artist recalled. “It was one of the most moving moments of my life. I felt that I had given my father a sense of pride and happiness.”
Throughout his career, al-Malek has worked both as a visual artist and as a caricaturist.
While caricature allowed him to engage with society and reflect people’s concerns, painting remained his personal refuge.
“Through caricature, I learned to stand beside ordinary people and their concerns,” he said. “Yet my final refuge is painting, because painting is what allows me to fulfil my inner self.”
That personal connection to painting shaped the direction of his work.
“When I decided what subjects to paint, I had two choices, he explained. “Either I could become a mere copy of the European artistic experience, or I could portray my own society using a universal artistic language.”
Many of the women who appear in his paintings are drawn from childhood memories.
“The women I paint are women I actually knew,” al-Malek said. “They were mothers, sisters and members of the community. I have always wanted them to remain part of the visual vocabulary of my paintings because they give the work its local identity.”
He said that painting remains at the centre of his life: “I live with painting twenty-four hours a day. It dominates my sensory perception and my everyday awareness.”
For al-Malek, art is more than a profession: it is a way for him to understand himself and the world around him.
“Painting allows me to move away from the visible, material world into a world of transparency and subtlety,” he said. “I am always searching for a kind of paradise, a lost paradise. That is what I am constantly trying to find.”
The Artists’ Voices series highlights the lives, creative processes and artistic perspectives of prominent Qatari and resident artists.
It forms part of the QM’s broader “Evolution Nation” campaign, marking the institution’s 20th anniversary and celebrating Qatar’s growing presence on the global contemporary art stage.