A pasted moon on the top left corner of a photograph stands out, somewhat in contrast to the rest of the work. But it does the job, pulling into the frame, and those like it, tides of water that drench their subject. Entitled "Eschaton, Egyptian artist Nermine Hammam's collection of 46 paintings, currently on exhibit at the Townhouse Gallery, provide room to ruminate on layers and layers of water. Hammam, who studied filmmaking at the Tisch School of Arts in New York and has many exhibitions to her credit, also worked with late Egyptian director Youssef Chahine and acted as production assistant in Spike Lee's 1992 "Malcolm X. Her portfolio also includes designs for Cilantro café, Diwan bookstore, and spots like Abu El Sid restaurant. "Eschaton depicts every day images at Egypt's beaches, where people drop their guard and surrender to the call of waves at shores; yet remain dressed in everyday clothes. To be reminded of this reality is somewhat jolting when one associates the beach with idyllic images peppered with swimsuits, umbrellas, palm trees and so on. The photographs, superimposed with other pictures and paintings, are linked by their location: they are all shot at the beaches of Alexandria and Ein Sokhna. Her works have another layer of watercolors painted, scanned, and worked into her photographs with Adobe Photoshop. The opening of the exhibit provides an interesting contrast - with photographs of the local beachgoers, attended by the sophisticated, if not elite, crowd at the Townhouse. In a tête-à-tête with Daily News Egypt, Hammam explains the origins of "Eschaton. "It is a Biblical word, she explains, "which means the end of time, or of an era. But to Hammam, Eschaton has a different, personal connotation. Struck with "nostalgia while going through her grandmother's old pictures, Hammam was compelled to return to the beach and take pictures. "People looked so different hanging out on the sea, she says. It is a place where identities become fluid, "men pose like women and "women feel safe in water. In the face of a camera, the people themselves become models. It interests her to see how stereotypes from another place and time have traveled into the modern Egyptian psyche that poses at beaches. "Like movie stars in the 50s, says Nermine, like "Rita Hayworth. But what about the bulky man weighed down further by his wet fanilla vest and shorts that looks anything but posed and graceful? "Oh, I thought he was fun, says Hammam, "funny. It is clear there is an element of flirtation in Hammam's work. She is definitely teasing, but it's not quite clear yet whom. Sometimes, the choice of her subject is daring, such as a munaqaba (woman wearing a face-veil) in the water with a man, who chased her after noticing Hammam taking photos of her. Hammam is caught off-guard, also, by reactions to her exhibit, "like this one lady who said it was 'Bolshevik work,' recalls Hammam, "because it is showing [common] people. As though, says the artist, by virtue of the subjects being common, "you almost glorify them. Other times, she is teasing the viewer, as in the image where a man reclines on the beach in a feminine posture of abandon. Yet over his shoulder is a disembodied hand with the camera. Is the camera pointing back at Hammam, the photographer? Is it mocking representation of the 'other'? The answer is far from all these intellectual contemplations. "It is actually a man with a camera over the shoulder that got cut off. I need it to be repeated. The surreal element is partly imagined by the viewer. What really has happened is she has cut one person out of a picture, but his hand has remained on the shoulder of the other, and it just happens to hold a camera. As an artist, you "manipulate work, says Hammam. "It is difficult to be surreal in photography. Hammam negotiates the "space between photography and painting. Her works are layered palimpsests (interestingly, the title of a former exhibition). A single work may carry up to "200 layers, says Hammam. For this exhibition, she used watercolors, scanned the photos on to the computer, and photoshopped her work. The moon is pasted, fish are out of water, a Cola logo shows up here, another Mobinil there. But Hammam says she is playing with the culture of advertisement, and the postures they promote that find their way into poses that people take at beaches. Yet the artist is also interested in the "unguarded moments, the times of "abandon. The layers in her art are also those in the memory of the body. The 20-year-old body at the beach remembers the abandon it felt at first contact with the beach at two. "Sexual politics are at play at the beach, says Hammam, for the munaqaba is completely dressed, yet she is with a man, and half of their bodies are underwater. Through art there is a beach culture, she said. Yet it hasn't found its way into the art scene in Egypt, excluding the commercial work of photographers who get paid for commercial pictures they take at the beach. Hammam is interested also in the beach as a microcosm, as a study of society. "I would love to do a 30-year retrospective, with pictures every two years, to see how Egypt has changed from a single point of view, of the beach. For her next series, Hammam is working on a contrast between advertisements and the poor men and women that live in strongly contrasting culture with them, like a billboard of the perfect residential city atop a shantytown. Catch "Eschaton at the Townhouse until Feb. 11. To see more of Nermine Hammam's work, visit www.nerminehammam.com.
