Time goes by. And the years go past. And somehow and for some unknown reasons, we remain in love, infatuated by its sand, smitten by its sun, struck by its Nile, burdened by its glorious past, and bonded to its people.
Sayed Saad el-Din helps us understand, put some reasoning into this piercing feeling of attachment, of belonging to a land where kindness still exists hidden underneath the sand, where warmth wraps the mind and soul past a blazing sun, where harmony is concealed behind the turmoil, and where hope prevails, though tomorrow is capricious.
And as we look at “the heart (which) has its reasons that reason does not know” (Pascal), it seems that Sayed Saad el-Din may know after all. Because he chose optimism over despair and because he chose beauty over exasperation. Saad el-Din knows that our love can never end and will never end and lures us into a wonderfully sincere and touching world where perfection is no coincidence and mystery is the answer.
And while Sayed Saad el-Din attempts to draw the veil from some of the ambiguities that overshadow our life, he ceremoniously reveals the essence as well as the perfection that lies behind the imperfections. He lays bare our instinct for freedom that cannot be reversed and must grow to a powerful force if there is hope. Sayed Saad el-Din ultimately restores the greatest secrets to that enigma, in which we live and ever will remain. And that enigma is Egypt.
Like an architect, every detail is scrutinized, yet we feel the abstraction of the moment and the intensity of the simple chores. Circles, wheels, hoops, ropes, spirals, and balls smoothly float in the sky, gently spin on the sand, magically roll in the water, leading us towards infinity, like a prayer or a windmill – a passionate metaphor to the world we live in and to a country we are so attached to.
Born in 1944, Sayed Saad el-Din was raised and schooled soaked in the rustic sun of Qena in Upper Egypt. After enrolling in the Faculty of Engineering in Minya to please his parents, he soon realized his genuine calling was, in fact, art-making. Relentlessly pursuing his passion, he left Minya at the age of 17, headed alone to Cairo’s big capital, and began his formal art studies at the Leonardo Di Vinci Institute under the mentorship of modernist painter Sayed Abdel Rassoul. From then on, his life as an authentic Egyptian painter and sculptor would unfold, with scholarship grants, numerous local and international awards, public commissioning, and residencies abroad.