WHETHER HIS AUDIENCE sees his work as simple, complex or random matters little to Nader Tawfik. His job is done: All reactions are proof that his paintings stimulated people’s thoughts, which is all he ever set out to accomplish in the first place.

Some of the pieces of the 29-year-old’s work that were on display for two weeks last month at the American University in Cairo’s Falaky Theater (5th floor) can’t be classified as paintings. With a 0.35 blue ballpoint pen and some notebook paper, Tawfik was able to create drawings that are sophisticated, yet simple enough to appeal to children. As far as classification, Tawfik has little motivation to categorize, and likes to describe his main goal as getting people to think “outside the box.”

Tawfik’s experience as a young artist probably has everything to do with the way he goes about exhibiting his work today. He has been creating drawings for as long as he can remember, but last month was only the second time that he has put any of his work up for public display.

Ask him the meaning of any of his pieces, and your question will almost certainly bounce right back. “Well, what do you think it means?” he will reply. “I don’t really like talking about my work because I don’t want to put any boundaries or constraints on the recipient,” Tawfik says. “I want people who look at my paintings to be free to think whatever they want to think.”

Unfortunately, he says, he didn’t realize the value of his work until he showed it to people outside of Egypt, particularly in Canada and the United States. At home, he explains, traditional artistic ideologies simply prevent people from commending his work, as its often unorthodox style doesn’t seem to fit into the molds that have been formed for hundreds of years across the region. But abroad, Tawfik says his work gained much needed support when he found out that other artists drew and painted in styles that are similar to his.

“I spent eight years not showing my work because I didn’t know whether the art I was producing was right or wrong,” Tawfik says. “I then discovered that there simply is no right or wrong; it’s all relative. It’s like asking someone what time it is. Well, it depends on where that person is standing.”

From small notebook-paper drawings in pen and pencil to large-scale paintings in chalk pastels, colored pencils and charcoal, Tawfik’s work conveys no clear theme. Half of his pieces don’t even have titles, and he admits he only named the others on the last day before opening night. Assigning titles, he says, is a form of verbal communication, which he claims he is not very good at.

“If I knew how to talk, I wouldn’t be drawing,” he says.

While symbols and characteristics associated with life in Egypt or the Middle East pyramids, donkeys, rooftops crowded with satellite dishes may be present in some paintings, they are nowhere to be found in others.

“I start from a point called ‘I don’t know,’ when I have no idea what I’m going to draw, so I’m not tied up by any formal rules,” says Tawfik. “When I show people my work, I get completely different reactions. One person might look at a painting and tell a story about what it means to him. The next person would tell a completely different story, even though it’s the same painting.”

On opening night, Tawfik could be seen slipping in and out of different groups of attendees, picking up on chatter about his work. As was the case with the rest of his pieces, one untitled 2004 pastel painting seemed to draw a lot of attention and, to his delight, a variety of reactions to its perceived meanings. While one middle-aged woman saw “a man with a pipe,” a group of college girls saw a belly dancer, while yet a third group of college boys saw “contradictions and conflicting emotions.”

Perhaps Tawfik had a good reason to run the exhibition under the title in search for a meaning, making irrelevant any single claim that it has been, or will ever, be found. et