How to spot humour in faces: Three caricaturists from the UAE tell all...

Every face has a story to tell. Even the perfectly painted ones. Enter the world of a caricaturist and you may just discover more layers of amusement to a face than what you had imagined. Traditionally, caricatures have been associated with political cartooning where an illustrator lampoons a public figure by exaggerating their features. Today, professional caricaturists have come into their own, marking their presence at social gatherings. You may find them at a birthday party, a wedding anniversary or a corporate event, drawing faces they have known for a few minutes and finding humour in them. How palatable is this humour for the guests? Does an artistic pursuit become a chore when it is done to add an element of coolth to a party? Three caricaturists give us the answers!

Artist Matt Ryder at his studio in Business Bay (Photo: Neeraj Murali)
Matt Ryder
Must caricaturists possess a sense of humour? Going by the nature of their work, you'd assume, yes. Matt Ryder, in that sense, is a bit of an exception. His brand of humour is more internalised. During the course of our hour-long chat in his (upcoming) studio in Business Bay, he has rarely smiled. "You wouldn't think a caricaturist could be so serious, would you?" he jokes. However, the moment our gaze is directed at a freshly-made caricature of the US President Donald Trump, we cannot help but grin.
Matt is clear: he'd rather make his work talk, or, in this case, laugh. A fine arts graduate from the UK, Matt, like most young aesthetes, never really thought that his passion for caricatures would bring him anything other than a few pats on the back. Ten years and several challenges later, his skills have not only earned him accolades but also helped him sustain a career out of drawing caricatures.
The journey hasn't exactly been a cakewalk. When he came to Dubai nearly a decade ago, he sought a corporate job. But Lady Luck had other plans. Drawing caricatures of colleagues at office gatherings, the word about his craft spread. Soon, he found himself doing caricatures at a booth in Covent Garden Market in Marina. As one thing led to another, Matt soon found a fairly robust clientele in the events segment - something that also encouraged him to set up a professional company called Matt Ryder Caricatures, where he works with a pool of part-time caricature artists on different events and projects.
Today, his pencil might wield a power of its own, but one of the major concerns of being in the caricature business, he says, is that it is not a level-playing field, financially. "I wish there was a standard rate. When you are working on corporate events, you ought to have a flat fee. I do have a minimum booking fee and then I charge per hour. But there are artists who charge less, and that depends on a lot of other factors."
His process is rather simple. "I do both traditional and digital caricatures, which are done on tablets. I position the person a particular way, making an assessment of the face. Generally, I draw the nose first and then the rest of the head."
As someone who leans more towards the idea of caricatures as a form of illustration, Matt's body of work is pretty impressive - there are fresh perspectives on Game of Thrones, Ed Sheeran, Kim Jong, Jay Z and Albert Einstein. His real-life subjects, however, can be more demanding. For instance, he remembers a time when he was doing caricatures at a corporate event. "There was a lady who had been watching all my caricatures and laughing. She then came and sat down. I drew her and everybody around me liked it quite a lot. However, when she looked at the drawing, she did not say anything and walked off without looking at it. It was the first time in my career that someone had not taken their drawing. I kept the caricature at the back of my easel and went for a break. A couple of minutes later, she came over, took the drawing and laughed. She obviously liked it but had been offended."
No wonder then he finds it tricky to draw attractive women aged between 20 and 40 because they are more conscious about the way they look and how that translates into his caricatures. Who then are his preferred subjects? "I like drawing gangly teenagers and the elderly; they are more at ease with themselves."

Live caricaturist Rania Naccour draws a caricature of Kim Kardashian (Photo: Leslie Pableo)
Rania Naccour
In a room full of guests, it is the twinkle in Rania Naccour's eyes that talk the loudest. Armed with a drawing paper and a pencil, Rania, it seems, is up to something naughty. A few minutes later, as you look at the paper she has been scribbling on, you may just find yourself marvelling at the sheer genius of her mischief. In a matter of a few minutes, she is ready with a caricature of her guests.
As a live caricaturist, Rania has been on top of her game for the past 15 years. Having studied fine arts in Lebanon, it was her knack for spotting beauty that - ironically - drew her towards caricatures (incidentally, most of her work accentuates or exaggerates the most beautiful features of her subject). "When I was studying, I found out that the thing I liked most about art was drawing humans. Each face has a story to tell. Every feature is unique. I started out by having booths in art festivals where I would sit and draw people for hours."
Soon after, Rania moved to Dubai and realised that the market for caricatures had yet to really take off. She was among only a handful of artists practising the form of illustration. As much as it was her heart's calling, Rania soon realised that her passion alone wouldn't help her pay bills. "That's when I started doing caricatures at events - conferences, birthdays, marriage anniversaries." She also took up a day job, teaching portraitures and caricatures at DUCTAC part-time.
Commercial events can be nightmares for artists since they do not have control over their subjects. But this is exactly what makes the job exciting, argues Rania. Sometimes, though, their short attention span becomes a cause for concern. "When most of them are being drawn, they are self-conscious and are looking elsewhere or their friends are making fun of them.
So, they are never really still."
Today, private and corporate events are increasingly seeking the services of caricaturists to add that extra element of fun to their celebrations. For artists like Rania, it is a welcome change, one that offers them a means to earn a living without having to put their passion on the backburner. What has also helped is that the art market in Dubai itself has grown multifold in the past 10 years. "Dubai is a place where people from different nationalities come to live. Everybody brings in their artistic background. Perhaps that's what led to the boom," she says while admitting caricature as an art form needs to be given greater attention.
Despite their light-hearted appeal, caricatures have traditionally been used to make strong political statements. However, Rania admits she loves her bubble way too much to step into reality. "I am very sensitive, so I shield myself. I don't watch news. I don't watch horror movies. I am more concerned with the bright side of life. I like beauty. In my caricatures, for instance, I don't exaggerate facial flaws; rather I amplify the beauty." A reason why she also makes a case for caricatures to 'infiltrate' people's lives. "Look at music. Anyone or everyone who says they can't sing, do, in fact, sing. It's something that becomes a part of your life. It's the same with caricatures. Today, if you go to weddings, birthday parties, you will see one person carefully observing or drawing you. Caricatures are the only art form that can truly infiltrate into people's lives because it doesn't demand flawlessness, much like music." Perhaps, just perhaps!

Caricaturist Adeel Saeed snapped at Middle East Film and Comic Con (Photo: Shihab)
Adeel Saeed
"Can you do my caricature? But please do not make it funny!" It is not easy to be in Adeel Saeed's shoes when he is doing live caricatures at an event. "In my mind, I laugh at these requests. However, it gets complicated too. At those times, I just end up making a portrait with a small body to make my subjects happy because at the end of the day, I'm at an event where I have to satisfy a customer."
Adeel discovered his love for caricatures rather early in life, when he was living with his parents in Turkey. Every day after school, he would pass by a street where an artist, sitting under a tree, would be drawing sketches of tourists. A young Adeel soon found a mentor in him and began to spend time with him after school. "From 2pm to 6pm, to be precise," he remembers. Even though his parents approved of his passion, they weren't quite convinced that caricaturing could earn their son a livelihood. And that's when Adeel decided to study computer science engineering. With a degree to fall back on, he decided to give his passion another chance. "I moved to Dubai in 2004. Here, I found some great opportunities for these kind of activities. Soon after, I started doing live caricatures. Earlier, I was freelancing, but then I started my own company, Caricatures UAE."
As part of Caricatures UAE, Adeel works with a set of freelance caricaturists for events and has different packages tailored to suit the client's needs. However, the artist in him has a few grouses. For one, he says, not many people here understand the purpose of caricatures, but a significant portion of blame lies with artists who have misguided their subjects into believing that portraits are a form of caricatures. "There are quite a few artists in the UAE who actually do portraits and then put a small body underneath, and that passes off as caricature. The audiences then begin to expect the same from every caricaturist." Adeel feels caricatures can, in fact, be a lot more challenging. "Caricature is a level ahead of portrait because, in the latter, you have the material to work with and it's a question of replicating it accurately. But in caricatures, you are reinventing a face and bringing out an aspect of your subject's personality. Not many people understand that."
Adeel is aware of the market he is operating in and acknowledges that in Europe and the West, at large, there is greater awareness about caricatures as an art form, and artists as well as subjects genuinely have fun with the form. Here, the challenge is different, one that Adeel expresses through an anecdote. "Once, a caricaturist was drawing a lady. At the end of the drawing, she said that she would take the painting but wouldn't pay for it because it was so ghastly. He insisted that if she wasn't paying for it, she should not take it. Yet, she did. Somewhere, she knew it was good, but she felt insulted by the exaggerated elements of her face," says Adeel, adding that there also exists a section of the audience that helpfully directs him to "go crazy" with their caricatures.
This year at Comic Con, Adeel had his own booth and sold approximately 50 copies of his caricatures of superheroes per day. With many platforms like these coming up, can caricaturing help an artist sustain a living? Not yet, he says. "You will not get an event every day. You can surely hold your own exhibition. But it won't guarantee that you will be able to pay your bills. I think we have some way to go before that happens here."
anamika@khaleejtimes.com