Outsider art
Gamal Nkrumah sees the brush strokes of exiled Sudanese painters percolating through the Egyptian art scene
Scarification, Ash-Shilloukh in Sudanese Arabic, is the name Cairo-based Sudanese artist Bahreddin Adam gave one of his haunting paintings. Facial scarification is a Sudanese tradition that cuts across religious and regional barriers. Every Sudanese ethnic group and tribe has its own "marks of distinction". It is the one aspect of Sudanese culture that is universal in application. The tribes of Arabised northerners are distinguished by certain facial scarification marks. Those of southern Sudan and of the west and east also have their own facial scarring traditions. Among the Dinka people of southern Sudan, parallel lines or V- shaped patterns are scarred on a man's forehead. Many northern Sudanese have long, crescent-shaped facial cuts -- some running from temple to chin.
Younger Sudanese people fleeing fighting in remote areas and drifting into the cities invariably discard the age-old practice. Among city-dwellers it is a dying tradition. That is why the exiled Sudanese artist Bahreddin tenaciously maintained the concept of facial scarification in his painting. He himself bears no facial scars.
Nowadays the art establishment tends to be sceptical about "primitivism", a term the exiled Sudanese artist rejects. The work of younger Sudanese artists often tends to be pejoratively dismissed as "naïve painting". But Bahreddin graduated with a degree in fine arts from Khartoum University. His work documents his past and reinforces his identity. He hates to be cut off from the ancient tradition. "Even cattle are branded by the washm. The cattle and camels of each tribe are marked with distinctive scars. This is the way of all Sudanese -- northerners and southerners, Muslim, Christian and animist," the artist told Al-Ahram Weekly.
Bahreddin was born in the southern Sudanese garrison town of Malakal, Upper Nile. His father was a soldier in the Sudanese army and the family moved from one garrison town to another while he was growing up. "Exile for me is easier because we never stayed long enough in one locality. Our family was always on the move," Bahreddin explained.
The exiled Sudanese artist hails from a thoroughly hybrid cultural heritage. "Pan- Sudanese", he stresses, is the defining aspect of his identity which is reflected in his work. His father is a westerner, his mother a northerner, and he himself was born in the south. Much of his childhood was spent in Nyala, a provincial capital and market town in western Sudan where people from all over Sudan and beyond have traditionally met to exchange goods and ideas. Bahreddin was named after a celebrated sultan, or king, of the Masaleet, although he is an ethnic Baggara -- one of the largest nomadic Arabised tribes of western Sudan. He speaks passionately about the beauty of the land he left behind.
Douash, a cool and moist season which precedes the onset of heavy rains, is the name bestowed on another of his paintings. Blue and beautiful, dotted with sparks of intense vermilion, orange and vivid canary yellow, the painting mirrors the gaiety and festivity of the season. "Weddings and festivals are usually held during the douash," Bahreddin muses.
Douash is a season of homecoming. Among his father's people -- the nomadic Baggara -- it is a time when they return to their homes and traditional pasture lands in mountainous western Sudan. Douash stands in sharp contrast to the noushouq, the hot and dry season when the grasses wilt and the Baggara are forced to leave their homeland in search of greener pastures in the south. Noushouq, the name he gave to another of his paintings, is a season of sad departure.
Bahreddin Adam favours strong and vibrant colours. "They are frank and direct," he says. Acrylic on canvas is his preferred medium at the moment. "I feel more African than Arab," he tells me in heavily-accented Sudanese Arabic peppered with Cairene slang. He has worked with other Sudanese artists in workshops in Cairo and as a volunteer art teacher working with Sudanese refugee children. "I strongly object to the use of the term 'refugee'," he starts and quickly changes the subject by saying that he "does not want to get into politics".
Questions of citizenship and identity present serious challenges to Sudanese artists living and working in Cairo. Their lives in exile prompt them to take a critical look at their cultural identity and help shape their perceptions of themselves and their work. Life in Cairo offers a chance for a critical evaluation of their work and exposes them to different concepts and ideas.
"Art for me is a means by which I explore beautiful black faces dreaming of a better future away from the misery and harsh realities," Ibrahim Al-Sayed told Al-Ahram Weekly. Born in 1976 to Sudanese parents living in Egypt, Ibrahim was raised in the central Abdin district of Cairo.
His mentor is the late Hassan Hakam, a Sudanese artist whose work strongly inspired Ibrahim. By sheer coincidence, Ibrahim was spotted by the celebrated Egyptian cartoonist George Bahgoury. While Ibrahim denies that he was directly influenced by Bahgoury, there is an uncanny but unmistakable resemblance in their work.
Living in exile can engender greater artistic energy and creativity. Internationally-acclaimed Sudanese artists such as Ibrahim Al-Salehi, Hassan, Rashed Diab and Kamal Ibrahim left Sudan and sought asylum in Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States. But for budding Sudanese artists in Cairo, struggling to make ends meet often takes a terrible toll on artistic production.
Yet, Sudanese artists in Cairo persevere. In Egypt, they hope their work will reach a wider public. They want the world to know more about contemporary Sudanese art. They have individual and personal ambitions, and they crave and demand wider recognition.
Ibrahim studied law at Cairo University, but he developed an interest in fine arts before graduation. Today he consecrates his life to his art. He walks around with a sketch pad and pen. Ibrahim's perseverance paid off in 1998, when he won a prize for graphic design from Cairo University. His art was exhibited in January at the Opera House. In his most recent exhibition, in April, his work was shown along with that of four other exiled Sudanese artists at the Michaelangelo Gallery in Downtown Cairo. His work has also been shown in countries as far afield as Portugal, Scotland and Turkey. He is particularly proud of the displays of his work in Al-Ahram's pullout section Ayamna Al-Helwa, Our Sweet Days, which appears every Friday.
Yet, these African artists often feel excluded from Cairo's mainstream art scene. Many Egyptians expect stereotypical "primitive" art from African and Sudanese artists. "Where are the masks?" is a typical question posed to Sudanese artists. Many Sudanese artists in Egypt complain that Egyptian artists and the Egyptian public at large often appear far more preoccupied with Western or European art than with African art.
Few Sudanese artists have made their mark on the Arab cultural scene -- they live in a hybrid world neither entirely African nor Arab. They have carved a niche for themselves at the borderlands of Arab civilisation and culture. Take the case of Amadou, or rather Ahmed Abdel-Hamid.
Amadou who? The young Sudanese artist chooses to call himself Amadou because he sees himself as "both African and Arab". Amadou is an Africanised rendition of the Arabic name Ahmed. Amadou came to Egypt 12 years ago when he was 15. He joined the Japanese Cultural Study Centre, in the Cairene district of Kubri Al-Qubbah, to study Soumi-é -- a form of Japanese painting using natural ink.
Cairo offered him the opportunity to explore an art form that was not possible to sample in his native Sudan. Cairo also gave him the chance to prove himself. At a competition in Helwan University, Amadou proudly claimed the first prize.
However, there have been many disappointments for African artists in Cairo. At a competition at the Cairo Opera House in which Ibrahim Al-Sayed felt his chances of winning were good, he was barred from competing on account of his nationality. After applying, his name was withdrawn from the competition and the organisers refused to exhibit his work when it became known that he was Sudanese and not an Egyptian national.
Even in the art world, an underlying tension can be found between northern and southern Sudanese. But in workshops like that of the German Church near Al- Ahram's New Building, and at All Saints Cathedral, Zamalek, or St Andrew's Church, the north-south divide is being bridged. Artists from all over the Horn of Africa -- including Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea -- congregate, learn to work with each other, exchange ideas and share experiences. In many instances, this is their first experience of interacting with fellow compatriots in an artistic milieu, as in the case of northern and southern Sudanese, or at a regional level among artists from various African countries. Cairo emerges as the melting pot where disparate groups meet, work together and get to know each other.
