 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 February 1999 Issue No. 417 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
 |
 |
|
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 February 1999 Issue No. 417
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
|
|
|
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Special Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Devouring abundance
By Anna BoghiguianGazbia is surrounded by her 1997-1998 watercolours. The place is Luxor, Imbaba, Cairo, Hammamat, Alamein, and the time is early morning, or before sunset. She sits in the middle of the room with her husband, to receive her friends, customers, admirers, whoever. She answers questions, gives explanations. Like an empress in the limelight of the Cairo art scene, she reclines in her chair, and explains how and why she painted those watercolours. Hers has been an extraordinary career, and you can see that she is proud of the contribution she made to Egyptian art.
It is enough to turn towards the entrance and the works she did in 1962, to observe the stark contrast with those made last year. An artist is a product of the society, politics and culture of a specific place and time, as much as she is a product of the universe as a whole. The 1962 drawings are proof of this idea. They were done in the context of a project which Tharwat Okasha, the minister of culture at that time, instigated with the object of "remembering Nubia". Among those involved were numerous artists, architects and intellectuals, including Fouad Kamel, Hamed Nada, Tahiya Halim, Mohamed Said, Hassan Fathi, Habib Gorgi and Louis Awad. The aim was to bring the memory of Nubia into contemporary art. It was a time of faith, exploration, discovery, looking towards the liberation of the Egyptian intellect and its self-realisation. The aim was to explore what was authentically Egyptian in a mystical and mythical manner.
Some of Gazbia's drawings of the time are quick sketches, some are more elaborate. The subject matter, of course, is Nubia. With a strong line, she makes the hills, the sky, the water of the Nile, and the houses perched on top of those hills. Following the motion of the Nile, in one slow movement, my eyes are taken to those rocks in Aswan that seem to float in the water or to surround it. There is the metaphysical feeling that the ancestors are absent, and yet present to chisel their sculptures. In another drawing, the view is of trees that are in the Nile: it looks as if the water were going to devour their abundance.
For many years now, Gazbia has gone to Luxor every year for ten days. She stays on Crocodile Island, hiring a caretta (cart) every morning to go into town. She wanders around by the Nile with her papers and pencils, watercolours and ink. She finds herself a comfortable spot, and with a broad brush she splashes her colours onto the paper. She observes the coming of the 'abbara (ferry). Her subject matter, when it is in movement, is painted very swiftly. She paints the people of Luxor, the simple people whom she loves, the pillars of the monuments, views of peasant women coming out of the 'abbara. Everything is done in watercolour and ink mingled together, to give light and texture. There is no burning hot sun. Nothing burns, neither the subject matter nor the spectator. They are all there -- the light on the walls of the temples of Luxor, the people in their multi-coloured clothes sitting on the 'abbara.
For her paintings of Imbaba, Gazbia paints in the same manner as in Luxor, but her colours change to fit the mood of Cairo's sun, and to engage its surroundings.
In her Hammamat watercolours, the different mediums meet to give form to her characters with a thin line of ink. When I gaze at Gazbia's work now, I remember Egypt as it was 30 years ago. The role of the artist has changed, but artists are still struggling to create and to give an identity to an unstructured art world. Today in Egypt the identity of the artist is different, both in its isolation, and in its unity of thought with the greater realm of the art world and the masses. But then, those who gave form are gone, and they have left closed doors behind them. And the spectators are always changing, they move and fade away, leaving the artist with her work to reflect on what has happened in those years.
For exhibition details, see Listings
