CAIRO.- Safarkhan announced the second exhibition for esteemed contemporary international talent Mohammed Abla from 23 January to 14 February. Abla has garnered international acclaim for his ethereal and original style and his reverence for using his own special painting techniques. Since graduating from the Faculty of Fine Arts of Alexandria in 1977, he has received recognition at home and abroad for his various showings in Europe, in places such as Holland Germany. Abla has also taught art as a profession in Europe in Sweden and Austria before he served in the same capacity in his native Egypt at the AUC. Abla has been a consistent feature within his homeland for over two decades across a variety of platforms, and this exhibition promises to be another resounding chapter in Abla’s accomplished artistic voyage, this time with an altogether different aura.

The uniquely created works in this collection are a majestic painted travel log of Abla’s journeys in his homeland and through exotic and distant lands, ranging from scenic landscape and landmark vistas to gatherings of locals in diverse locations clothed in traditional garb. Abla again in this collection showcases his masterful technique with oil paints, which he complements with a tasteful application of color highlighting the effect of light and shadow and in each that his art is so well loved for. In captivating and almost scenes painted in his distinctly dreamlike quality, Abla transports us from Egypt too far off lands such as India, Yemen, China and Jerusalem - capturing their essence in an especially sensitive and emotive manner. We are made to feel the intrinsic beauty of the destinations in his travels through his broad quick brushstrokes and tantalizing choice of palette, which imbues each painting with a certain blend of authenticity and his own personal creative touch, composing a certain blend of the artist’s own reality with reimaginings of real life locations.

This magnificent collection features a truly rich assortment of oil work, which has undoubtedly remained true to Abla’s characteristic style. However, for an artist with a perpetual fascination with travel, it also offers a refreshingly new artistic take on the concept of soul-searching voyages. We are made to feel as though we are passengers with an unquenchable wanderlust, as Abla steers us through the mesmerizing colors and characters of home and foreign lands. He accomplishes this through at times a composed serenity in realistic and picturesque landscape renditions, whilst at others he invigorates his paintings with a surreal and otherworldly flavor, giving us the impression as though such places can exist simultaneously in the real world and in the confines of one’s own mind as a place of longing sojourn.