Safeya Binzagr – Painting The Saudi Arabia Story

The impact of arts and paintings has been felt throughout many generations, yet one thing still stands out which is the undeniable fact that the creation of a piece of art is one of the easiest and safest means to preserve history and recall the rich heritage of modernization. Examining the life of this great artist Safeya Binzagr, it is very obvious to see that she remains one of the few artists whose works were so committed to cultural preservation. Being a pioneering artist in Saudi Arabia, she successfully documented the country’s customs and heritage in her art. Safeya can be described as ‘a daughter of the soil’ since her art works constantly revealed her struggle to bring back the rich heritage of Jeddah, after it had been snatched away by the strong grips of modernization, under the inevitable changes of human technological development.

Born in Jeddah in 1940, Safeya Binzagr was born into a 'well-known merchant family' and was privately taught art in Egypt. She went on to earn a degree from St Martin's School of Art in 1965. In the year 2000, she opened her own museum and gallery thereby making her the only artist in her country to have her own museum. Through her art works Safeya Binzagr captures Saudi heritage and customs, but at the same time, she beautifully illustrates the human life. Her artworks were admired for its vivid ability to tell a story by just visionary understanding, everyone who saw Safeya’s paintings could easily notice the well-detailed research put into the outstanding creative piece. Safeya spiced up her country’s appreciation of art through her outstanding paintings which could not be separated from the message it communicated; they were grouped based on a factual narrative that in itself delivers a vision. Her desperateness to preserve the history of her people, made her venture deep into art creation thereby transcending the status by also committing to a social and cultural responsibility beyond simply offering her people art.

Binzagr was an artist with a difference who placed a heavy emphasis on the significance and importance of her spectators’ reactions, her passion to provide these artistic accounts of legitimized documentation increased as her spectators yearned for a deeper understanding of their history which according to this unique artist was to her advantage since it required her to become a researcher of her own history and culture. Safeya Binzagr’s artwork was hinged on the intention of preserving and documenting the fading culture of the people. In her artistic career pursuit, one of the greatest inspirations to further display her creative expressions was the constant social feedbacks and the spectator response she received. Binzagr's work uses various mediums, ranging from oil paint, watercolor, pastel, drawing and sketchings. Her work often centers around daily life in Saudi Arabia. She has a series of works based on themes such as marriage customs, local costumes and old homes in Saudi Arabia. Some of her paintings are based on descriptions given to her by older women about their lives.

In 2017, she was awarded First Class honors in the Order of King Abdulaziz, reflecting her contributions to Saudi culture. In a suite of paintings from the 1970s, she detailed marriage rites, such as the ceremony where the bride first appears before the groom, who reads to her from the Quran. She also did the painting Al Nassah (1975) which captures the sumptuous silver-embroidered dress a bride would typically wear and the canopy over her head. One of her most famous painting is a self-portrait from 1969 where she looks placidly at the viewer in a gold-yellow overcoat and white headscarf. In 1995, she refurbished her home and transformed it into the Darat Safeya Binzagr, a foundation that contains her library and paintings, as well as the results of what became her decades’ long research into women’s traditional attire. She was honored in 2014 by the first 21, 39 Jeddah Arts, the annual international art exhibition. In a world faced with complete civilization and rapid technological advancements, it will only take artists such as Safeya Binzagr to help preserve the cultural heritage and history of the Saudi Arabians; so as to present to the younger generation the true glimpse of their lineage.