The Artists

Ten artists from seven countries have worked with Image A Nation. Each is credited in full for their work, and each was chosen for a voice that suits the place they paint.

Prafull Sawant

Prafull Sawant

India
36 paintings: Jordan & Jerusalem (24), Abu Dhabi (8), Dubai (3), Makka & Madina (1)

Born in 1979 in Nasik, India, Prafull Sawant is one of the foremost realist watercolourists working today. He has won 48 international awards, held 15 solo exhibitions, shown in over 80 international exhibitions and judged festivals in France, Russia, China, Peru and Italy. In 2015 he won an award at the American Watercolor Society's 148th International Exhibition in New York. He painted the whole Jordan & Jerusalem collection, and works across all four painting collections. Six of his paintings are held in the Royal Court of Jordan, King Abdullah Art Collection, Basman Palace, Amman.

Igor Sava

Igor Sava

Italy
13 paintings: Makka & Madina (6), Abu Dhabi (5), Dubai (2)

Born in 1973 in Kotovsk, in today's Moldova, Igor Sava studied at the Ilya Repin art college in Chisinau and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome after moving to Italy. He has more than thirty years of painting experience, a gold medal from the first International Biennale of the Watercolor Society of India, and exhibitions from Paris and Seoul to Fabriano and New York. He is a member of the American and National Watercolor Societies and teaches watercolour in Rome and around the world.

Ali Abbas Syed

Ali Abbas Syed

Pakistan
7 paintings: Makka & Madina (7)

Ali Abbas Syed is a Pakistani watercolourist known for developing new techniques in the medium, many of his works drawn from desert life. He has been recognised internationally as a World Master Watercolor Artist and began his teaching career at the University of Sindh, where many of his students have become art teachers and artists in their own right.

Olga Litvinenko

Olga Litvinenko

Russia
6 paintings: Abu Dhabi (3), Dubai (3)

Olga Litvinenko graduated from the Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in St Petersburg and has exhibited since 1999. She has won many international watercolour competitions, her work is in private collections in Russia, Switzerland, the USA, France and elsewhere, and she is a Signature Member of the American Watercolor Society.

Enza Viceconte

Enza Viceconte

Italy
4 paintings: Abu Dhabi (2), Dubai (2)

Enza Viceconte studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence and has lived on the island of Elba since 1986. Her work has been shown in Italy and abroad, including museums in China, the American Watercolor Society's international exhibition in New York (2015) and watercolour biennials in Italy.

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Grzegorz Wróbel

Poland
3 paintings: Abu Dhabi (2), Dubai (1)

Born in Warsaw in 1983, Grzegorz Wróbel graduated in architecture from the Warsaw University of Technology in 2009. He has painted and taught watercolour for over twenty years, joins plein-air workshops across Europe, and was commissioned in 2011 by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to promote Poland's Presidency of the European Union. He is a member of the Association of Polish Watercolorists.

Ekaterina Sava

Ekaterina Sava

Belarus
2 paintings: Dubai (2)

Ekaterina Sava is an artist and architect who leads the International Watercolor Society in Belarus. She graduated in architecture in 2012 and has shown and won awards in Europe, the Americas, South-East Asia and the CIS. She founded a watercolour school in Minsk, teaches masterclasses online worldwide, and is a member of the American and National Watercolor Societies.

Rajeesh Sawant

Rajeesh Sawant

India
2 paintings: Abu Dhabi (2)

Rajeesh Sawant is an Indian artist, a master of acrylic and a watercolourist, and the brother of Prafull Sawant. His two paintings in the Abu Dhabi collection, Riding Under Shade and Enriching Vision, are held in the collection of HRH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed.

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Mohannad Al Qaisi

Jordan
6 pieces: Khat & Tazhib

Mohannad Al Qaisi is an award-winning Jordanian calligrapher, accredited by the Turkish master Hasan Çelebi and a student of Mohammad Al Buhairy.

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Amal Abu Rub

Jordan
6 pieces: Khat & Tazhib

Amal Abu Rub is a Jordanian illuminator in the traditional art of manuscript illumination, trained by Necati Sancaktutan, a Turkish master of tazhib.