marina Painting

"DINAMYC LAYERING" Critic Text by Carmelo Strano "Along his search, Gamal runs two roads. Two dialectical and synchronic positions. As synchronic, they give the sense of the Egyptian artist's total world. One dimension is related to the strong interest that Gamal has always had for the scenography (which he has studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milan). He has made the most of this experience. He did it for the paintings and for installations. Mostly his paintings are poised between abstraction (tending to informal) and figuration and they are a sort of colour's performance, nothing else. I mean that the colour is never instrumental in relation to any assumption or message. Even when the figure shows marked contours, to it is not given any meaning. In these cases, the risk is to linger on it with complacency or decorative approach. That is how to establish a loosening of the colour's power in favour of a figurative story that, it soon becomes clear, to Gamal it doesn't interest. Therefore, the scenografic dimension is translated into the colour's performance. The other aspect of this scenografic dimension is given by the installations. Into these, Gamal Meleka obtains an interesting balance between expression modes and message. Installation is not absolutist, it consists of a set of formal and objectual elements targeted to a thesis. Obviously, this thesis will be strongly affirm, if the language used is strong. For installations Gamal puts formal inventiveness and dynamism in succession of elements. Also, if the colour is an ancient subject but ever actual, for his installions, Gamal employs technological materials, from industrial to informatics, as it is well demonstrated by the work that he has created two years ago as part of the Biennale of Cairo. I come back and I recover the original proposal of the two dialectical and synchronic positions that underlies all Gamal's research. One position is refered to the scenography about which I have just said. The other position is, as announced, the opposite. It is not the performance but the stratification, it is not the emersion but the immersion. And we are to works that are proposed in this publication and to whom in the last four years, Gamal dedicates himself with particular decision and happiness. The informal approach is still the protagonist. Only that it, rather than vehicular tout court the artist's mood, it acts building.