Hossam Hassan Dirar was born in 1978 and raised in Cairo, a city whose rich heritage has been a huge inspiration. He is a graduate of Helwan University, where he received the highest marks of his year for his graduation project.
Saatchi chose one of Egypt’s rising contemporary artists, Dirar, as one of the top ten emerging artists to invest in during 2013. A multi-disciplinary artist working across painting, photography, installation, video, and graphic design.
Dirar conceives his work as a re-interpretation of Egypt’s rich visual heritage, overlapping between the multi-cultural character of Cairo, the city’s complex and ever-expanding urban façade, the region’s traditional iconography, and the influence of contemporary media in shaping cultural referents.
Through his work, he tries to bring to life the beauty of traditional images in a 21st-century way, combining fragmented images of women with an intense, chaotic, and multi-layered palette. It’s like decoupage meets graffiti.
Perhaps the invisible that the artist is chasing in his work is the phantom idea of beauty mixed with the criteria of the future/past, trying to continue the tradition of personifying time.