Gamal Nekrumah and Rania Khallaf reveal the mind behind the Paradox "Darling, the legs aren't so beautiful. I just know what to do with them," the late luminary Marlene Dietrich quipped. Nermine Hammam, like the iconic figure she portrays, can be as notoriously pugnacious as her idol. But she could also be just as ardent, at once both warm and whimsical. "I think Dietrich is my favourite, I cannot imagine myself as some peroxide, platinum blonde," Hammam reaches out for one final grasp to be Dietrich in person. Surely, these are not Umm Kalthoum's comely ankles? The legs of the six Maat images are as spare as they are complex. They convey an awkward shape to the lilt of Hammam's works. "Her feet are the broken wooden legs of African dolls," Hammam chortles. The question was fired point blank and Hammam had no where to hide. She is exceedingly tall, a foot taller than everyone around her. Her elevation in the Egyptian artistic scene came through her distinctive unconventional collage and her tackling of prickly topics in her work such as Metanoia, in which she explores the subliminal images of the lives of Egypt's psychiatric patients and psychosis. This visual artist's curious Maat-inspired self-parodies confound some of the conventions on which contemporary Egyptian, post 25 January Revolution social order rests. The uptightness between what is depicted and what is left unspoken is palpable. And while her photographic exhibitions, such as Metanoia, are about other people and outlandish places, her paintings are self-portraits, obviously about herself in the guise of Maat dolled up as iconic figures such as Umm Kalthoum and Marlene Dietrich. Maat as an ancient Egyptian principle and philosophy was purposely metamorphosed into a goddess by the pharaohs. Maat was conjured up to meet the complicated and convoluted material and mundane needs of the ancients. The emergent Egyptian nation-state of yesteryear embraced diverse peoples, ethnic, racial and religious groups, often competing with conflicting interests. Maat was created to contain chaos. The effect was enlightening. Maat was depicted as a young woman, the goddess of harmony, justice and truth. She posed clutching a spectre, the symbol of power and grasping the ankh in another hand -- emblematic of eternal life. For an instant Hammam's mask cracked. Her figurative prints, after all, exist in a surreal sphere halfway between painting and photography. "Maat is a transformative, ritualistic work, where I confront the instability that surrounds me, striving through art to call forth order, balance and the restoration of harmony," Hammam elucidates. She imbues the six images of Maat with a wistful punch. "I called them Maat because they embody that fine balance between masculine and feminine energies inherent in the archetypal woman. They are a modern reincarnation of the ancient Egyptian goddess, carrying within them the elements of order and balance but also power," Hammam clenches her fists. "Maat is a reaction to the unsettled environment around us, shaman-like transformative ritual to conjure harmony and restore order," she explains. Maat was often portrayed with an ostrich feather on her head to exemplify moral uprightness, and outspread wings that Hammam makes ample use of in her extrinsic self-portraits. The contemporary visual artist struck a tentative relationship with the ancient goddess. "The iconic female figures all emerged from one simple dress pattern," very gently as if in motion, she raises her index finger. Her hand is trembling, or is it my imagination? Her works of self-parody is curiously reminiscent of the verse of my preferred poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. "Flushed with the famishing fullness of fever that reddens with radiance of rathe recreation," I recite Swinburne absent-mindedly as I peer into the eyes, ruby lips and curious crimson floral patterned dress of Hammam as Umm Kalthoum. Epaulettes are cobras. Or are they shoulder straps? The serpent is the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph denoting the feminine as well as a royal emblem. "Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that glean through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast," I gaze in disbelief at the little girl with a tiara and the sleeveless blue dress. "Mild is the mirk and monotonous music of memory melodious mute as it may be," my mind wanders again to Umm Kalthoum and Hammam's husband readily concurs with me that the diva is his favourite Maat depiction of his wife. "Sweetens the stress of suspiring suspicion that sobs in the semblance and sound of a sigh." Umm Kalthoum's sighs hang in the air. Swinburne's poetic intensity can be felt in Hammam's photography and paintings. "Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with fear of the flies as they float," I spy the Geisha dressed up as Maat in an indeterminate kimono. "Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor's appalled agitation," an untitled, Indian-looking Hammam in an ashen and leaden sari, anklets, cobras and a halo strikes me as Harold Pinter's take on his beloved Lady Antonia Fraser -- "My dancer, my bride". Hammam conjures up images of feminine spiritual fulfilment. The six representations of herself as different guises of Maat are enigmatic and taciturn. Taken together they form a sequential and symbolic narrative. "I began to project elements deeply personal to myself onto this template until a consecutive series of women, or expressions of the feminine, began to emerge from this initial work," Hammam says nonchalantly. "Maat is a symbol of the power that comes from balance, certitude, and symmetry. It is the female goddess-warrior carrying the gun, not attired in male clothing but wearing a dress. I have transferred the power of the male domain into the feminine space. Entering this new sphere where it is traditionally excluded, the gun becomes a symbol of power for its bearer and also a form of defiance," Hammam extrapolates at length. "Maat was created in response to the 25 January Revolution, and the sense of upheaval experienced by ordinary citizens, as political events unfolded." Nevertheless, like Swinburne's Nephelidia, Nermine Hammam's Maat is about herself -- her cares and concerns. The human gestures Hammam captures so graphically recall altered consciousness and transcendental spiritual experiences. "Till the heartbeats of hell shall be hushed by a hymn from the hunt that has harried the kennel of kings." Maat is as much about self-parody as the Arab Spring, superstars and symbolism.
