“Crossers’ Bridge” is the theme title of an art exhibition by Egyptian contemporary artist Hayam Abdelbaky at the Zamalek Art Gallery. The exhibition runs till 14 February.
Artworks on display include 40 paintings telling stories that narrate the artist’s childhood and her small house in the village where she was born and which saw her very first beginnings.
The ‘house’ the artist left in her village many years ago is the inspiration for her first graphic works. It unfolds as a world rich with scenery, sounds, scents, and stories.
Ms Abdelbaky’s paintings represent the bridge she crosses to access all her memories. It is obvious that the noise of the city and its modern life have not blemished her soul. She continues to retain the spirit of the village life with all its wealthy legacy of detail.
The paintings feature well-known folkloric heroes such as Abu Zeid al-Hilali. They also depict joyous traditional celebrations; the Arousset al-Mulid so popular among young girls celebrating the annual feast of the birth of the Prophet Muhammad is not merely a candy doll, but woven of folk narrative and music.
In other paintings, there is music, dance, drumbeats, sounds, birds, melodies played on the flute, and various scents including the scent of roses and the scent of hot baked bread just out of the oven on a grid of palm stems carried on heads coloured by the sun.
The worlds of the artist Abdelbaky is richly influenced by ‘the woman’: the giving mother, sister, wife, and, partner. Women in many of her paintings possess long necks as symbols of dignity, nobility, and value.
The artist’s paintings are strongly structured based on the diversity of elements, tending towards expressionist abstract, and sometimes surrealism.
The Egyptian rural environment is the foundation of the artist’s work, and has been the basis of her Maters degree thesis. Abdelbaky leans towards nature in everything, even in her use of materials, preferring oil colours and avoiding acrylic.
Apart from oil paintings, the artist works at wood engraving. She has a unique experience in preparing natural colour tinctures that she used in her engravings. It presents a distinctive experience dominated by earthy colours coming from her rural background.
Watani International
5 February 2024
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