| The Rose Al-Youssef illustrator and watercolor painter is an artist without inspiration By Farah Yousry |
| At 55, Mohamed Al Tarawy still has tousled black hair, lightly freckled, soft-looking cheeks and the slightly distracted gaze of a man who spends a disproportionate amount of his time contemplating and drawing. Al Tarawy is usually found chipping away in his atelier in Maadi or in his office at the weekly Rose Al-Youssef, producing his well-known illustrations and portraits. Among the renowned images in his portfolio are Queen Farida, former UN Secretary General Boutros Botrous-Ghali and former South African president Nelson Mandela. This unassuming figure has a long list of accolades to his credit: Al Tarawy has received the State Honorary Award of the Arts as well as honors for his international exhibits in the Middle East, Europe and Asia. The Arts Academy of Tashkent, Uzbekistan, has given him an honorary doctorate. He stands out as one of the very few remaining local artists who work solely with watercolors. International acclaim aside, Al Tarawy is also a renowned artist in the world of journalistic illustrations and is keeping the art of manual journalistic illustration alive despite the advent of computers and digital design. The apple did not fall far from the tree. Al Tarawy’s father was an interior and exterior designer who made sure Al Tarawy’s talent did not pass unnoticed. The support encouraged him to build a long career showcasing in almost 100 international and local galleries. No topic is alien to Al Tarawy, what with his worldwide travels and his membership in the journalists’ syndicate, as well as almost all artistic communities in Egypt. A conversation with him can shift from art to politics to sociology all the way to philosophy seamlessly. He has an ironic streak, but his default mode is a kind of easygoing acquiescence. The artist’s rich background frequently makes an appearance in his work. Al Tarawy’s admirers often point out with awe (and his reviewers with frustration) that his works are all but impossible to sum up in a single conversation or in one article. On Inspiration Al Tarawy says there is no such thing as an inspiration that drives the artist to draw. “I can’t point out something or someone and say, ‘This is my inspiration,’” he explains. “I don’t have a source of inspiration. Mood dictates what the artist draws — be it fear, happiness, sadness and so forth.” During the interview, this reporter handed the artist a blank sheet of paper and asked him to paint something off the top of his head. Al Tarawy painted a street full of beds with people sleeping on them. While some might see this as symbolic of poverty or homelessness, Al Tarawy has an entirely different explanation. “Traffic jams are far from aesthetic, they are frustrating,” he says with a consumed look on his face. “We spend more time on the streets in our cars than we spend doing our work. Our cars might as well be turned into beds.” His distinct artistic views make his presence more striking in all his paintings. “If Al Tarawy was a novelist, he would fit under the category of short stories,” says art critic Mohamed Kamal. “His style is condensed. A painting consists of very few strokes.” Where other watercolor painters use many strokes to give their paintings intricate detail, Al Tarawy tends to portray fewer details but always has a concise and succinct point of view evident in his paintings. “Al Tarawy’s style is a result of how tremendously fast-paced life has become,” Kamal explains. Al Tarawy may not believe in inspiration, but he speaks eloquently and philosophically about creativity, describing it as quenching a spiritual thirst. “Creativity is a result of the need to actualize one’s self, spiritually and artistically,” he explains. “It is something we strive for in order to feel satisfied.” In his view, a creative artist is one who can surprise his audience while still maintaining their admiration. In his galleries, Al Tarawy tries to never present the same concept of art twice. “Some artists, when they feel that a certain style of art is acclaimed by their audience, tend to become stagnant and present the same style at every other gallery,” Al Tarawy says. “I think this contradicts the essence of creativity in any field of life.” No other artist can talk about change of style better than one who draws illustrations for journalistic articles. No Age of Computers Al Tarawy, who has been working at Rose Al-Youssef for more than a decade, has produced portraits of renowned figures like former President Gamal Abdel Nasser as well as comic illustrations about political and social issues. Many people still pick up Rose Al-Youssef issues just to check the magazine’s new illustration. With the rise of Photoshop and computer graphics in illustration, many believe manual magazine illustrations are a dying art. Al Tarawy thinks otherwise. The beauty of art, he says, is that a person, just by looking at a painting or picture, can experience the emotion that moved the artist who created the work. Al Tarawy sees it as an intimate and personal experience. “Hence, I do not think that computerized forms of art and illustration will ever replace the conventional way art is done,” he says. “Despite the fact that computer programs have made the reproduction of images an easier task than manually recreating these pictures on paper with pens, pencils and brushes, the artistic product would still be lacking.” Conventional artists rely on certain techniques and effects to determine the way their drawings will look once complete. Computer software allows artists to quickly change the appearance of the illustration in a matter of seconds. “The process itself of changing the appearance of the painting manually, depending on the mood of the artist, is very important,” Al Tarawy says. “The artist’s work should capture the mood of the artist at a particular moment, which takes time. Having the tools that can make him change the appearance of the painting in a matter of seconds alters the essence of art.” While Al Tarawy does not feel the manual arts are dying, he questions if the art of caricature and illustration in Egypt has really been encouraged to thrive. Pointing to the example of the West, where there are schools dedicated to these art forms, he explains that Egypt has many talented artists, but their talent needs to be developed. “The art of illustration and caricature is not as simple as it may appear to be,” Al Tarawy says. “Summing up the events and the social and political issues of a certain period of time in a mere black-and-white frame that people can relate to is a very hard thing to do.” He adds that journalistic illustrations do not just require a creative mind, but one that can cater to and capture the essence of the written word, whether the artist feels or agrees with the written content or not. Wanted: An Artistic Culture As an artist, Al Tarawy says that he was not subject to direct forms of censorship, noting he believes that painters like him weren’t really considered a threat because art isn’t as mainstream as media. That is why, he says, he has been able to reflect social problems and political corruption in some of his work. Still, he believes a painter’s role in Egypt is nothing compared to the role artists played during the renaissance in Europe or in Stalin’s Russia. “This is not because our art is not up to par,” he explains. “However, in Egypt, paintings and art galleries are exclusive to a very small stratum of the society, unfortunately.” Egyptians do not have an established artistic culture that can make a painting move them or call them to revolt against a situation. Al Tarawy cannot recall any one instance in which a painting, not just in Egypt but also in the Arab world, has caused any debate in mainstream channels. “[Egyptians] lack this culture,” he adds. “This is due to an almost [non-existent] art education in schools and households.” Al Tarawy’s latest work in the Egypt: Our Home exhibition is dedicated to the revolution. It reveals a dream-like depiction of the uprising, with a tall silhouette of a person in red, floating above a sea of blue cubes and gently diced red, white and black flags. The surrealistic painting is reminiscent of 20th-century French artist Marc Chagall. Given the relative freedom artists already had compared to others, Al Tarawy does not foresee any substantial gains after the revolution.However, he thinks that artists should seize this opportunity and try to improve Egypt’s educational system, making art and aesthetics integral parts of “any toddler’s education.” “The key to completing this revolution and making it succeed is for each one of us to have an alert conscience,” the artist says. “Everyone should do their best and utmost in their field of expertise. Even if it might seem insignificant, it will help in building the bigger picture.” “Some artists, when they feel that a certain style of art is acclaimed by their audience, tend to become stagnant and present the same style at every other gallery. I think this contradicts the essence of creativity in any field of life.” |
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