Mamdouh Ammar (1928 – 2012)
New Artist Representation by ArtTalks

ArtTalks is proud to announce that the gallery now represents the estate of the late artist Mamdouh Ammar.

Born in 1928, Mamdouh Ammar graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1952 – the year of the 23 July Revolution and during a time when the Contemporary Art Group were in the process of creating a spectacular Egyptian Folk Realism movement. A two-year apprenticeship in the studio of Turkish watercolor master Hedayet between 1945-1947; a close student-teacher relationship with Beppi Martin and Hussein Bicar; and further studies in the studio of André Lhote in Paris then at the Arts Academy in Rome enabled Ammar to build a multi-faceted narrative in which expressionism, symbolism and surrealism blend.

With a career extending over a period of six decades, Ammar investigated three main themes: magic, war and women. In his search for the essence of humanity, he narrated the story of a society immersed in popular myths, Sufism and folk practices and depicted the height of rejection of war as a solution to any conflict. By the end of his life, Ammar seems to have found the answer to a better life in the generative power that emerges out of the company of one’s own self, in silence.

At first socially minded, later isolated in peace, the prolific artist never ceased to pay tribute to women and convey the importance of freedom.

Mamdouh Ammar’s work is in numerous private and public collections, including the Egyptian Museum of Modern Art (Cairo), Port Said Museum and the Denshawai Museum (Menoufia).

In our pursuit to nurture an early culture of art appreciation, we invite schools to visit our ongoing exhibitions. The Lycée Français du Caire makes our gallery a regular stop bringing children aged 7 – 12 to visit, explore and draw.

A panel discussion around gallery practices in Egypt, with Mohammed Talaat (Gallery Misr), Aleya Hamza (Gypsum) and Fatenn Mostafa (ArtTalks), took place as a launch platform for MHWLN (pronounced Mohawellun, deriving from the 1930’s avant-garde Egyptian group Les Essayistes). Founded by Clare Davies, Ahmed Naji and Ahmed Shawky, MHWLN is a working group devoted to researching and reflecting on the history of contemporary art in Egypt.

ArtTalks Gallery is proud to announce Juxtaposition, Hazem El Mestikawy’s first solo exhibition in Egypt in five years.

In his sculptural installations and wall objects, Vienna-based Egyptian visual artist Hazem El Mestikawy seeks to create minimalist work in reduced forms yet rich in layers of meaning. His unique act of juxtaposing, overlapping and locking or glueing different modules made of cardboard and paper, creates technically elaborate and thematically engaging works. With flawless precision and a geometric complexity, El Mestikawy creates infinite, abstract and pure patterns from symmetrically repeating letters, numbers or shapes. Visibly architectural, his creations use a variety of inspirations from his heritage such as the most fundamental principle of Sufism – unity in multiplicity. The notion of meditative process, repetition and time, as also found in Islamic art and architecture and ancient Egyptian art, is his constant guiding spirit.

T20Egypt, a Think Tank with a group of 700 Egyptians educated in the top global 40 universities across the world, hosted a brainstorming session at ArtTalks Egypt, using Art as a platform for soft power. The discussion, with Dr Ziad Bahaa Din as guest speaker, revolved around Egypt’s economic future.

ArtTalks Gallery And Pashion, Egypt’s premier fashion magazine, cooperated to launch an annual one-day event to exhibit merging works of art by Egypt’s new generation of Fashion and Jewelry Designers with Egyptian Contemporary Art.

Featured this year, fashion and jewelry designers Dina Shaker, Dido Embaby, Kojak, Nuniz, Okhtein, Reem Jano, Rons Bags, Yasmin Mansour, Mema El Shafey, Moja Khafagi and Fashion Clan.

The event was generously sponsored by Gianaclis wines, Absolut Elyx and Chivas.

ArtTalks is pleased to announce the addition of Hossam Dirar to its growing roster. His first solo exhibition at the gallery will take place in April 1, 2014.

Dirar was born in Cairo in 1978. He completed his BFA from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University in 2000. Fascinated by the art of calligraphy, Dirar studied its relation to art.

He first worked as a graphic designer before setting his own graphic design studio SamDzine. His early practice involved the use of calligraphy on day-to-day banal photography on canvas.

To enrich the work, he developed his technique by painting with oil and using knives. His elaborate and obsessively multi-layered texture has become his core technique.

Today, Dirar creates his own portraiture style with knives and oil, adding thick layers over layers. Yet he manages to give the feeling of a quick rendering of a face before it is forgotten.

Perhaps the invisible that the artist is chasing in his work is the phantom idea of beauty, trying to continue the tradition of personifying time. In 2013, Chief Curator Rebecca Wilson from Saatchi Art selected Dirar as one of twelve most promising young artists from around the world to invest in, in the Saatch Invest Now Part II series.

As part of our continuous efforts to raise art appreciation and Arab art exposure, ArtTalks is excited to welcome Mr Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, a renowned UAE-based columnist on Arab affairs, an influential Twitter commentator and most of all, one of the Emirates’ leading art collectors and patrons of the art. Al-Qassemi is the founder of Barjeel Art Foundation.

This time, we are inviting Al-Qassemi to wear his collector hat and talk to us about modern and contemporary Arab art, his inspiring journey into art collecting and Barjeel Art Foundation, where he preserves and exhibits one of the most important middle eastern collections.

“I never paint reality. I always paint a parallel world.”says Riham ElSadany (b. 1978), who is also known as Riham AbouSeada. Her solo show, “Fantasmagoria” takes place at ArtTalks gallery this month. The artist, who has a Ph.D. in Performance Arts, says that her studies of human psychology and the Egyptian personality inspire her work. Her influences include Amedeo Modigliani, Fernando Botero, Pablo Picasso, Tamara de Lempicka, Frida Kahlo and Gustav Klimt .