Rania Khallaf interviews an artist famous for his obsession with typical Egyptian faces and places The show put on last month at the Picasso Art Gallery in Zamalek, "Egypt Rises Again" by the established Al-Ahram artist Mohamed El-Nasser, stirs up more questions than a typical exhibition devoted to illustrating the places and faces of Egypt. While some artists have opted for illustrating the revolution in a documentary way, such as showing actual scenes and events from the revolution, Nasser chose to leave this job to his characters. "The developments that led to the revolution, the torture and killing of Khaled Said, and corruption issues, for example, were the main influences for bringing this exhibition to light," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. The faces, mainly of veiled Egyptian women from the middle classes, affect challenging glances and reflect a hidden pride. His scene-portraits of such popular Islamic places in Cairo as Al-Hussein, Gamaliya, Ghoriya and the Citadel also echo this meaningful silence; the silence of dignity and rarity. "Faces and places have always been my favourite theme, but after the revolution I had this feeling of something new surrounding the same places and people," El-Nasser said. Some of his paintings reflect the smell of Egypt's history: a painting of public markets or a bent wooden cart parked against a wall in a back street in an old part of Cairo. It is not just a stationary cart it is burdened with a glimpse of history and stories from the past. This is exhibition number 13 in Nasser's artistic career. And although he started working on this show two years ago, he produced seven of the paintings only after the revolution broke out. Born in Qena in Upper Egypt on 1 January 1957, Nasser lived with his family in the coastal town of Hurghada before moving to Cairo in 1974. This might explain his infatuation with blue, and with dark faces. Nasser is one of few artists of his generation who have focused on portrait painting. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree from the faculty of fine arts in 1979 and was ranked first -- in the 'excellent' category. His infatuation with portraits took him to a further point: in 1990 his Masters in fine arts was entitled "the constituents of portrait in expressionism". Eleven years later he obtained a Ph.D. from the faculty of fine arts with his thesis "Portrait's social and psychological dimensions in ancient and modern Egyptian Art". Nasser believes that portraiture as an artistic genre is far from a dying art. "Some international artists have used multimedia tools in developing this art. However, I am more infatuated with the features of Egyptian faces and clothes, and their social implications and everything that denotes the Egyptian identity," he said. Nasser's tutor in the art of portraiture is the great painter Hussein Bikar, and this may explain why he clings to more traditional techniques. All portraits are painted in watercolours, a medium romantic enough to reflect the musing emotions of the artist. Most of the paintings are infused with a soft blue, reflecting the optimism and hopeful expectations for the people of this nation, which "will never die or be defeated" -- as he repeated many -- times during the interview. In this exhibition, blue is not just the colour of the sea or the sky; it is everywhere the -- colour of a woman's scarf, a carriage wheel or the walls of an old house in an old and rundown alley. Other colours that prevail in Nasser's paintings are the various degrees of red and orange, greeting the viewer with a profound sense of assurance and happiness to invade the viewer. I hesitated for a moment before asking him where all this optimism came from? "Although the picture looks a bit gloomy now that the economy and security of the country is in such an austere situation, I believe we are going to survive. We are in a transitional period and I am very optimistic, despite this sudden rise of the Islamic current in the political scene in Egypt. Egyptians, I believe, will be keen to protect their society and their cultural and educational achievements," Nasser concluded.
