CAIRO.- Safarkhan presents its first ever showing for esteemed Egyptian artist Mohamed Abla in ‘A Glimpse of Heritage’ in what promises to be a resounding and moving display of his most diverse creations. Pieces that indulge in themes of travel, exploration, antiquity and the lost and captivating charm of far-off lands, the mesmerizing allure of Oriental scenery of our old heritage as well as modern scenery of our cities, and their curious but enthralling inhabitants.

Abla has enjoyed various forms of international recognition for his evocative and original style. Since graduating from the Faculty of Fine Arts of Alexandria in 1977, he has received praise and acclaim for his various showings in Europe, in places such as Holland and 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 exhibitive feature within his homeland for over two decades across a variety of platforms.

Abla has painstakingly produced parts of this collection through his unique creative process, which involves the dipping of his paper sheets into a water solution that he then stains with paint, before removing the saturated sheets and drying them, and afterwards completing each piece by hand through painting his evocative panoramas and mystical scenes in the radiant and blooming palettes, using collages and calligraphy. His unique and preferred technique establishes a kaleidoscopic and dreamlike quality of visual effects, where the backgrounds of his works are imbued with a supernatural and otherworldly dimension, reflecting mirrors and swirling collages of contrasting colors that mesh in unison, sometimes in harmony and other times in a fascinating competition that is appealing. The first part of Abla’s exposé is a wandering journey into the characters and tales of oriental antiquity’s kings, princes, sultans, traders, soldiers, poets and mystics, and the precious secrets of their magical age, conveyed through mysterious faceless figures enveloped by fantastical and almost psychedelic environments that transport the viewer to these lost ages of mystique and folklore of the ancient orient.

In the second part of this collection are Abla’s works which focus on the metropolis; Cairo’s densely congested but perpetually lively city life. In these entrancing cityscapes Abla uses simple strokes of lines and dots and the same fluorescent and vibrant colors that are typically fantastical and supernatural and applies them to very real-life settings. Cairo’s massive web of highways and roads which weaves amongst its thousands of buildings and structures like arteries and blood vessels in a human body, are depicted all from a bird’s eye view which captures the grand scale of modern development, and creates a highly alluring image of Cairo’s colorful vibrancy in terms of people and structures. He depicts these cityscapes at dusk or in the middle of the night which greatly enhances the provocative and surreal color schemes he employs to give life to these illustrations, and through them he establishes the city as having a magically alluring quality of its own. In particular, Abla has visualized for us in his artistic style, a scene of the eternal pyramids of Giza from a bird’s eye view in all their splendor surrounded by a circle of haphazardly assembled high-rises competing for space. Conversely, the pyramids are depicted in a space of their own as though sacred and superior in their glory, and resistant to the consequences of modernity that are slowly encroaching on their timeless space. Abla’s depiction here suggests that even though we are now surrounded by technological advanced societies, these comforts will never measure up to the pyramid’s eternal beauty and stature.

Abla’s diverse artistic expressions in this collection are in essence a periodic illustrated journey along the legendary Silk Road that stretched from northwest China to the Middle East and then finally the imperial domains of southern Europe and his representation of our modern cityscapes completes the journey of our show “A Glimpse of Heritage”, moving from lands of antiquity to the modern setting in a seamless transition, where still the vestiges of antiquity such as the pyramids are presented in a revered manner. Abla’s paintings are also a resurrection of the historical significance of this celebrated age in picture, breathing new life into epic scenes and characters that would have otherwise been lost to the vastness of time. Abla’s storytelling is an important reminder of the unifying bonds of humanity and the heritage of these lands from past to present beginning along the Silk Road where multitudes of cultures and traditions with vastly different qualities, beliefs and characteristics, interacted and intermingled, resulting in the communal benefit of these divergent ancient lands, and culminating in Abla’s depiction of modernity, which is now also a part of our heritage and where still remnants of antiquity still remain alive. And overall this exhibition stresses the significance of us all being part of the same world, sharing more in common in our humanity than in opposition or difference and emphasizing the past and the present are but completing elements that form the circle of live.