September Story implies both narrative and autumn, but the current exhibition at Art Corner Gallery, Zamalek, is a random gathering of new work by three mid-career artists: Maha George, Sahar Al-Amir and Shaker Al-Idrisi. With the works mingled and no logic to their presentation, the cramped space of the gallery made it difficult to enjoy any one artist or work. With their bright, spontaneous colours and layered textures, Al-Idrisi's mixed-media works do manage to tell stories. He will even insert a poem into his paintings, as in the one dedicated to the artist Ahmed Bassiouny, who was killed during the revolution's Friday of Anger in 2011. The composition is written in black in unadorned script, lending it greater appeal. A 2002 graduate of the Faculty of Art Education, he earned an MA in folk art in 2007 and is currently earning his PhD in workshop management. His attachment to the folk arts originated in his childhood in Dakhla oasis, where he still visits his family on a regular basis. “It remains one of my main sources of inspiration. In our tradition, people wear white, not black when someone dies. You would hear ululations if the deceased coffin proved light to carry, as this is a sign that they will go to heaven.” Al-Idrisi also studied dolls in different cultures, beginning in Dakhla and moving onto the United States. “I memorised Burdat Al-Bussairi,” a classical poem, “when I was a child,” Al-Idrisi says, “and I started to write poetry in the mid-1990s. I am also fascinated with amulets and symbols, as you can see.” The world revealed in his paintings is therefore both personal and abstract. “I work directly on the surface of the canvas with no preparatory sketches. And with the mixed media I am using I feel like having a boundless world.” The ball of thread in one painting comes from the tradition of the oases. A koralliya, as Al-Idrisi explains, “is made of the remains of old clothes, collected in a small ball by the poor to be taken to the weaver, when big enough, to have a rug made out of the clippings.” Al-Idrisi feels that spontaneous expressionism is enough of a binding factor to justify exhibiting together with Maha George, Sahar Al-Amir. “We thought each of us had a story to tell, but there was no brainstorming or anything.” As to September, “For me it was related to the death of my parents some years ago, both of which happened specifically in September. You can see how white prevails in the paintings, as a sign of death; death, in its positive Sufi meaning, as a transfer to a new life.” Al-Idrisi mentions that he is working on black-and-white paintings to honour his late mother, Salma, a physician and a symbol of the modern woman in the oases. Maha George's relatively small paintings reflect her interest in women and heritage. Colours are layered on top of each other to no clear end, ultimately evoking the impression of woman putting layers of makeup on her pale face — a masquerade. The artist does try to justify her vision, using weaving and knitting techniques on the surface of her paintings. The prevalence of gold ends up being equally off-putting, however. Sahar Al-Amir's collages use the same technique, reflecting her keenness to “observe the contradiction between order and disorder on the streets” of Alexandria, her hometown. Despite the warm palette and the unified subject — panoramas of the city — they prove too busy to take in. The exhibition runs through 15 September.
