Dr. Najat Makki, The Colour of Heritage, the Light of a Nation
By Jane Stevens
There is something luminous about Dr. Najat Makki not merely in her art, but in the way she speaks of it. Her words move like her brushstrokes, deliberate yet fluid, filled with emotion, memory, and light. One of the UAE’s most celebrated artists and a pioneering Emirati woman to pursue formal art education, Najat has spent her life transforming the essence of her homeland into colour, rhythm, and form. Through decades of work, she has not only defined her own artistic language but also helped shape the identity of Emirati contemporary art itself.
Her journey began in the heart of old Dubai, where every street corner seemed to whisper stories and every texture of daily life found its way into her imagination. She recalls her childhood in Bur Dubai with tender nostalgia the creek shimmering under sunlight, the murmurs of the souk, and the quiet beauty of faces crossing from one shore to another. “I was born into a world rich with visual stimuli,” she often says, “and from those early days, colour became my language.”
When the UAE opened the door to international scholarships in the early years of the Union, Najat saw her path clearly. Against family expectations and social convention, she chose to study art a decision that demanded courage and conviction. “I knew it was my destiny,” she reflects. With determination, she left for Cairo and entered the Faculty of Fine Arts, immersing herself in sculpture, where she discovered the tactile poetry of form and mass.
Those years in Egypt were transformative, filled with experimentation and self-discovery. She recalls the thrill of standing before a blank canvas or raw stone, feeling her pulse quicken as each work took shape. When she graduated in 1982, she returned to the UAE with a heart full of dreams and a mind sharpened by exploration.
Her first exhibition in Dubai, held at Al Wasl Club in 1987, marked the beginning of a lifelong dialogue with colour and light. The local environment the rhythm of the desert, the pulse of the sea, and the serenity of everyday life became an unending source of inspiration. In her work, the dunes glow with golden warmth, the waves shimmer with turquoise calm, and the air seems alive with unseen movement. Dubai taught her how to see beauty not as an abstraction but as something woven into the very soul of life.
The path to becoming one of the first Emirati women to formally study art was not without resistance. At a time when creative careers were not widely accepted, Najat faced skepticism, both cultural and personal. Yet her perseverance became her greatest strength.
“When a person possesses true willpower, they can reach their goal,” she says. Her journey to Cairo was an act of faith in herself, in her identity, and in the belief that art could be a voice of both individual freedom and national expression. These challenges gave her work emotional gravity and depth, strengthening her resolve to portray the Emirati woman as a symbol of determination and grace.
In her art, Najat has always sought harmony between tradition and modernity. She draws from her surroundings, the desert, the sea, the city, translating their textures and rhythms into abstract forms and bold colour palettes. Her paintings capture the motion of sand, the pulse of light, and the serenity of vast horizons. The influences of Al Sadu weaving and Bedouin crafts find their way into her brushwork, while natural pigments like henna and saffron ground her art in the earth itself. For Najat, the act of painting is a dialogue between heritage and the present, a way of transforming old patterns into new visual languages.
Her reflections on the evolution of Emirati art reveal both gratitude and vision. She recalls the early cultural foundations that shaped the UAE’s artistic identity, the establishment of the Emirates Fine Arts Society in Sharjah, the Cultural Foundation in Abu Dhabi, and the International Art Center in Dubai.
These institutions nurtured a generation of artists who brought Emirati creativity into the global conversation. Over the years, events such as Art Dubai, the Sharjah Biennial, and Art Basel have carried the country’s talent to international stages, affirming the UAE’s place in the world of contemporary art.
For Najat, these achievements symbolize not only progress but also a deepening of national identity. Emirati art, she believes, thrives in its ability to balance modernity with emotion, technology with spirit. Even as digital media, artificial intelligence, and virtual exhibitions reshape the creative landscape, she insists that true art must remain human at its core. “Art should never become just a display,” she says. “It must carry the pulse of life, the voice of a people, and the memory of a place.”
When asked what defines the “Emirati aesthetic,” Najat describes it as something far greater than visual motifs or stylistic signatures. It is, in her words, “a complex fabric woven between memory and modernity, between the material and the spiritual, between stillness and openness to the world.”
She sees this aesthetic as an interplay of collective memory, landscape, spirituality, and nostalgia, all bound by a search for identity in a rapidly changing world. It is the quiet of the desert, the rhythm of the sea, and the glow of the city lights, all speaking in the same visual tongue.
To young artists, especially women, Najat offers advice born of experience and grace. “Stay true to your heritage and emotions,” she urges. “Experiment, explore, and take risks, but let authenticity guide you.” She encourages them to see art as a means of storytelling through one’s own lens, not as a mirror of online trends. For her, the greatest danger of the digital age is imitation; the greatest power is sincerity. “Use social media to share, not to define,” she advises, believing that the truest art comes from curiosity, reflection, and faith in one’s inner world.
If she were to describe her journey through colour, she calls it “a journey of light.” Each hue carries a piece of her soul. Blue and turquoise for peace and spiritual depth, red for passion and creative fire, orange for the warmth of desert sands, and yellow for the promise of sunrise. Green offers balance and renewal, purple whispers of contemplation, white brings purity and calm, and black grounds everything with strength and depth. Her palette, like her life, is a meditation on emotion and meaning, each colour a memory, each shade a story.
As she reflects on legacy, Najat returns to the words of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan: “He who has no past has neither a present nor a future.” For her, these words are a guiding light, a reminder that art is both memory and prophecy. She hopes that her work will continue to speak to future generations about the UAE’s enduring spirit, its reverence for heritage, and its unyielding belief in creativity as a form of national pride.
“Art,” she says, “is not merely colour or form. It is the memory of a nation and the spirit of its people.” Her wish for the next generation is clear: to carry their heritage within them, to let it breathe through every brushstroke, and to offer it to the world with love and conviction.
And so, Najat Makki continues her dialogue with colour and time, painting not only what she sees, but what she feels. Her canvases shimmer with the essence of Dubai’s light and the rhythm of Emirati life, reminding us that true art is timeless, that heritage is not the past but a living pulse, and that within every hue lies the heart of a nation.