Hassan El-Sharq's latest exhibition reveals more about his tools and mechanism. Reham El-Adawi finds out His facial features make you feel he has just come out of one of A Thousand and One Nights tales; he is Hassan Abdel-Rahman Hassan or "Hassan El-Sharq" as popularly known inside Egypt and abroad. As one of the most important spontaneous artists in Egypt par excellence, his paintings document traditions through colours where he makes brilliant and meticulous use of vernacular symbols that spoke for the popular traditional culture such as Al-Sira Al-Hilaliya (Al-Hilaliya Epic) which is very rich with folk heroes and stories on courage as well as the religious symbols inspired from the circles of remembrance at Sufi and festive moulids. In his most recent exhibition, "Poems and Roundelays" currently on show at Cordoba Gallery in Mohandessin, he perpetuates the works of late colloquial poets Salah Jaheen, Beiram El-Tonsi, Mohamed El-Gebali and Syrian poet Nezar Qabbani in 30 paintings. (see Listings) In the heart of Zawyet Sultan Village, 11km to the east of the Upper Egyptian governorate of Minya where he was born in 1949, lies the small house of art where El-Sharq spends most of his time painting. In Minya where monumental remnants that go back to the Pharaonic era and rural housing scattered around the cultivated lands, El-Sharq started to develop his visual memory that affected later his artworks. According to Al-Ahram art critic Nagwa El-Ashri, "the village was El-Sharq's main source of inspiration as it was obvious in his early works displayed at his Palace of Arts exhibition where he depicted folk symbols inspired by the popular traditional culture of the Egyptian village such as the moustache, the blue stones, the eyes, the gazelle, the horse's neck and the palm, becoming recurrent themes in his paintings. He is believed to be the historian of Upper Egypt artistic traditions." His early colours were very primitive as he used to buy from the village herbalist a collection of spices and powders that composed his palette such as saffron for yellow and liquorice for brown. It was not before 1983, when a German art critic visited El-Sharq in his atelier as she was in the process of discovering the spontaneous artists who didn't study art academically, that he found his way to international recognition. The critic arranged with him two yearly exhibitions for his work, one in Cairo and the other in Europe. Later he has built some international recognition and had several exhibitions organised abroad such as the ones in Stuttgart in 1989 and Munchin in 1990 in Germany and in Paris in 1991. He started to gain good reputation locally in 1990 when he had his first exhibition held at the Goethe Institute, Cairo then he started to have several exhibitions organised at Cairo's private galleries. The late veteran artist Bikar described him as "the genius of spontaneity", in the catalogue of his exhibition held at Rowd Al-Farag Palace of Arts, expressing his great admiration of his unique art. While his exhibitions always attract visitors and stimulate artistic discussions, El-Sharq stays in his hometown, preserving his local look, wearing his galabiya, and always escaping from the eyes of media and critics. His only worry is generating spontaneity.
