Nazli Madkour's latest exhibition links man to plant in a natural fusion of harmony and colour. Venus Fouad explores the artist's unique talent Nazli Madkour is an unusual artist. She studied politics and economics, earning an MA in political economy from the American University in Cairo and working briefly as an economic expert at the Arab League�s industrial development agency. However, her passion for art was not to be suppressed for long, and in 1981 she withdrew from public work to dedicate her time to art. Madkour is obsessive about her art and meticulous in her approach. Since she went full- time with her artistic career she has experimented with a variety with approaches, although her inspiration usually comes from nature and its tumultuous elements. The first decade of Madkour�s art career was one of serenity of shape and clarity of line, almost graphic in its approach. As of the early 1990s, however, a second phase began, one in which she leant towards expressionism in an attempt to emphasise content over form. At this stage she began to use paste directly from the tube to create various textures within her paintings. The lines became more faded, and the mass of colour became more assertive in compositions that became more fluid and dramatic. Then came a new phase, one that is more analytical and yet earthy. This phase started with her 'Call of the Earth'exhibition, in which she seemed to analyse the earth strata in a detached and yet mature style. I believe that it was this phase that paved the way for the appearance of the current phase, in which she explores the relation between reality and imagination. Madkour is capable of creating a new context for relations between man and nature. In her paintings, nature becomes a reflection of human feelings and sentiments. One of her exhibitions in this phase involved two contrasting types of painting: womanly phases, and scenery. In my opinion, this exhibition formed the auspicious beginnings of the current exhibition, since it focused on the interaction between humanity and nature, or let us say that it offered an insight into the soul. Now here she is with her current exhibition in Afaq, the art showroom attached to the Mohamed Mhmoud Khalil Museum in Giza. The show, which was inaugurated by Culture Minister Emad Abu Ghazi and the plastic arts chief, Ashraf Reda, reveals the maturity and experience of an artist who has held more than 30 exhibitions over three decades. In this exhibition Madkour examines the shape of flowers and plants. She has in the past explored a similar theme with her series of paintings of palms. Now, however, she approaches the topic from a fresh angle, allowing for a variety of shapes to come to life. This offers her a greater freedom of expression. What is enchanting about Madkour's work is her inexhaustible reservoir of subjects and her wide range of sentiments. It is as if she can draw on the delicate interaction between the world and the human soul, blend romance with reality, and yet reassure the viewer with a translucence of colour that is at once proportionate and delightful. Her vocabulary is forever changing, forever inviting, and yet her personal imprint is unmistakably hers. We see Madkour using various materials from plaster to papier m�ch... to help her vary the texture of her surfaces and push beyond the conventional forms of expression. Her use of colour is inimitably personal, subconsciously dreamy, and bordering on the unreal. It is hard to look at her paintings without slipping slighlty into this parallel world where reality is too malleable to grasp and fiction is too overpowering to ignore. In Madkour�s work, artistic expression intersects with philosophical content, and reality is always reborn in a different form. Her flowers are in a state of flux, shedding their petals, scattering seeds on the ground, and foretelling a new round of rebirth and rejuvenation. Her colours are symbolic, matching not reality but the elusive resonance of the human spirit. In her early stages Madkour applied colour with an intensity that summoned the dramatic influence of the earth strata, but in the current stage she emerges on the surface, offering us a symbolism of the tumultuous scene of scattered leaves, detached petals, broken twigs and swaying palm fronds. It is her bouquet of nature put together as an offering to the complexity of existence. Her content now becomes more subtle, hiding behind the shapes, beckoning and seductive. Madkour intensifies and simplifies at once; the softness of her lines is infused with the power of colour to summon a world that is youthful, resilient, and cheerful as springtime. In this exhibition, Madkour goes for abstraction that is fraught with dazzling symbolism, her colours ushering us into unseen worlds of inimitable compositions. She has taken nature along a new path where the physical and the metaphysical meet, mystery unravels and inaudible music permeates the scene. To explore such heights of engaging abstraction, an artist of lesser talent would have been lost along the way. Madkour stays the path with her dogged determination, her unusual sensitivity to colour, and her meticulous attention to detail. When she fuses purple with rose, when she brings into the palette shades of indeterminate nature, images unfold with unexpected cadence and it leads one to wonder about the unexplored aspects of her endless reality. Madkour occasionally brings down the tone of her expression, using neutral and subdued colours as a background for floral formations. She uses green in shades of blue and amber, bringing translucent glimmers into her unearthly compositions. Madkour is a key figure in Egyptian modern art, and the way in which she uses abstraction to shed light on reality is utterly new. Her scenery is enchanting and her mysticism is recognisable in every flower petal and tree branch. Painting is not just her passion. It is how she creates a reality that is bewitching and enlightening, and turns it into a lasting offering for humanity. The Afaq exhibition runs until 16 June.
