Mohamed Abla
Keeping Words, August - September 2022, Galerie Eigenheim, Weimar
Curated by Noura Simoni-Abla
Keeping Words brings together the main subjects of Mohamed Abla’s extensive oeuvre, showcasing a selection of works on paper, created between 1999 and 2015. Seen together, these works reveal secrets of different techniques and provide compelling insight into his diverse body of work.Mohamed Abla‘s work is both diverse and extensive, bringing together a thoughtful, research-based practice presented in a wide variety of mediums. From realistic landscapes to works of abstract pointillism, that needs a good amount of imagination to dive into, you can find everything hidden in his studio. While he might not have an obvious style that defines him, he has a strong focus that leads him: stories and people. Each story needs a new style and technique to be told and every person has their own characteristics, this is how his work comes together.Keeping Words showcases works that Abla started creating after a long journey through Europe. When Abla travelled back to Egypt to settle there he was overwhelmed by the masses of people and the many stories that could be told. He started to paint multitudes of people in a process of self discovery. Through this process he started to wander between the masses - a journey that brought him closer to the Egyptian people, their stories, and struggles. Building bridges between them and the wider world by illuminating their realities became the leading force behind Abla’s art. Making art is like writing a diary or putting together an archive of everyday life in Egypt; sometimes this happens almost literally and words and phrases start finding their way into a painting. Like the works in this exhibition one can find word plays, observations, his feelings, or even explanations - sometimes put into a context and at others intentionally warped of it. Many of the paintings comment on the realities and the social and political changes in his home country. Abla borrowed headlines from newspapers and excerpts of articles, piecing them together to start playing with their aesthetics. Mixing different mediums allows him to bring different subjects and layers onto just one page of his diary.Using Arabic script is a very deliberate decision to mix the energy of its letters with a long standing tradition of the use of calligraphy in Islamic Art. In Abla’s opinion, mixing images and words creates a harmony that either pleases the eye or has a destabilising effect - either way it creates movement and an interaction with the works. Those who read Arabic may wonder about the end of certain sentences, or notice the absurdity of the missing connection between words and images. Viewers who don’t read the language create a stronger bond with the personalities and visuals in the stories. Those personalities appear in many forms and shapes, depicted with a variety of techniques. His figures either stand strong for themselves, or hide amidst Cairo’s urban chaos, though their vitality and movements are always present. You will find a group of people, a family or just one character, always part of a bigger context and a longer story. While photography creates a personal connection to single characters, his figurative paintings are deliberately less personal and meant to represent the shared stories of Egyptian people. Mohamed Abla invites us to dive into the world of his stories and his characters and to decode his symbols.
The exhibition was curated by Noura Simoni-Abla and presented at Galerie Eigenheim in Weimar in cooperation with the Goethe Institute as well as the Kunstfest Weimar.
Photo: Mohamed Abla, Keeping Words, 2022,Galerie Eigenheim Weimar, Courtesy the artist