Cairo Magazine - Life by the Dead Sea

Abdel Hafiz uses the Dead Sea as a source of inspiration.

Farghali Abdel Hafiz has a dream. “I believe that through art, hope and peace can be fostered. Art has a role in changing people’s mental states,” says the 64-year-old artist, speaking at his latest exhibition in Zamalek Art Gallery. The title of the show is “Life on the Banks of the Dead Sea,” and the exhibited works reflect Abdel Hafiz’s own history with a region marked by war.

“The Dead Sea was a sea with a question mark in my mind,” he says, “It’s surrounded by ancient countries like Palestine and Jordan. It’s also an area that was in contact with ancient Egypt. Many great ideas came out of this region, many from Egyptian influence. Now it’s a place full of contrasts and conflict. Now war is the main element in the region.”

But there is no evidence of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle in Abdel Hafiz’s works, which focus on abstract portraiture and city-scapes. Abdel Hafiz is fascinated by the human face, and the faces he portrays in his acrylic and oil-stick works are serene and untroubled. “I draw my own features,” he says, “I draw Egyptian faces. Waves of a person’s spiritual energy flow through the face, so the face is important.” The calm, dream-like atmosphere he creates in his paintings is deliberate: “I visited [the Dead Sea] with the hope that art would find a cultural resolution to the conflict,” says the artist. “War takes 23 hours a day. The message of the exhibit is concentrate on art 23 hours a day, and the youth will find other, non-violent solutions.”

Abdel Hafiz was born in Dairout, Egypt in 1941, and credits the culture of Middle and Upper Egypt as having influenced his work. “I was very affected by the people, and by the area’s artistic and spiritual aura,” he says. Abdel Hafiz still prefers the countryside to Cairo, and in 1984 he built an atelier in Dashour to be closer to nature and traditional life. He was educated at the Institute of Art Education in Cairo, and obtained a government scholarship in 1965 to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Italy, from which he graduated in 1967. He returned to Cairo in 1968 to teach art and design at the University of Helwan, and in 1969 began a career of private exhibitions in Egypt, Italy, France, Spain and China. His popularity—both with patrons and critics—has earned him several prestigious artistic awards, including an Honor Certificate at the International Exhibition in Bulgaria in 1969.

Today, Abdel Hafiz is hardly resting on his laurels. His popularity as a painter arises in no small part from his ability to produce a startling number of pieces in a very short time—even his critics are forced to call him prolific. “Life on the Banks of the Dead Sea” is ample evidence of this signature characteristic, featuring over 50 recent works by the artist. The number of sold stickers pasted discretely beside his paintings throughout the gallery is telling proof that Abdel Hafiz is still charming Cairo’s aficionados.

“Life on the Banks of the Dead Sea” runs until 14 April at Zamalek Art Gallery, 11 Brazil St., Zamalek. (735-1240). Open daily from 10:30 a.m.-9 p.m. except Fridays.