CAIRO – In their black clothes, three or four women look like shadows. They look indistinct. Everything is gloomy. The small painting hanging on the wall is very real and very sad. Egyptian artist Ibrahim el-Fishawy says this sensitive work is called ‘el-Nadabat'. El-Nadabat is the plural of el-Nadaba, a woman who's paid to mourn the dead, something customary in rural districts. The painting, engraved on a small copper plate, makes you feel that someone is missing. Another painting is of a rural woman dressed in a galabiya, kneading dough. "I'm taken by rural life. Everything you see there has to be painted a hundred times because it hides a story," says the artist, born in 1952. In spite of his work as a qualified urologist, el-Fishawy has been interested in fine arts since childhood. He painted his first oil painting in 1964 and, ever since, has been trying out new techniques. El-Fishawy studied arts under the supervision of Egyptian sculptor Sabri Nashed in the 1970s, then spent a year in the Free Studies Department in the Faculty of Fine Arts. After that, he started learning water techniques from Monir Banoub, the well-known aquarealist. In his latest exhibition, el-Fishawy has introduced this new technique, engraving on copper plate. "The copper plates are etched chemically or electrically in order to create new colours and then I start to paint on them. I've made some mistakes, but I'll overcome them in future works," he stresses. "This technique is absolutely new; no-one's ever used it before.” The works, being displayed in an exhibition in the Extra Gallery, feature different themes; most are about rural life, but some deal with the Egyptian revolution and the circus. El-Fishawy's exhibition also contains examples of his paintings, graphics and fer forgé sculptures. In a striking black-and-white painting about the revolution, the artist shows three levels of people. The first level, at the top of the painting, consists of protesters holding the Egyptian flag, while the protesters at the second level are trying to protect each other. The last level depicts a group Central Security police. The police are dressed in black, the protesters in white. The latter are clearly the martyrs killed by the police during the revolution that toppled Mubarak. "The revolution should have happened long ago. It was necessary in Egypt, after all we have suffered. Yes, there are some negative things about it, but on the whole it's been a great revolution and we all needed it," the artist explains. In the same exhibition, el-Fishawy uses graphics to portray the theme of the circus. The colours are really easy and make you feel happy. "I like the way clowns move and the colours of the circus. That's why I've made these graphics," el-Fishawy explains.
