Mutaz Elemam

GIZA CAIRO, Middle East North Africa, Egypt

About Mutaz Elemam

Mutaz El Emam was born and raised in Kassala in the Eastern region of Sudan until he went to Khartoum to study Fine Arts at the Sudan University of Science and Technology. It took him three long months to finally convince his academically minded parents that in spite of his high grades at school, what he really wanted to study above all else was Art. Between 2003 and 2007 he worked in Art Therapy at the Grace Child Care Organization in Khartoum, an establishment that lodges and teaches young survivors of wars and adverse social circumstances until they reach the age of adolescence. His artistic practice encompasses Painting, Drawing, Mixed Media and Collage. His work has been showcased in Italy, Spain, Libya , Uganda, China,Bulgaria ,Sudan , Egypt and throughout the Middle East. He has participated in numerous solo and collective exhibitions regionally and internationally . Elemam was the editor of the Africa Art file for the “Not Apartheid Art” Cam Casoria art magazine. He lives and works between Egypt and Sudan.

Events:

"SELFIE" - 2015
A solo show by Mutaz Elemam at Cordoba Gallery.
Cairo-

"Sound Interpretations" 2014

A solo show by Mutaz Elemam curated by Maie Yanni at Gallery Misr-
Ask any young person today, anywhere in the world , about the meaning of a radio in their lives and the most common answer you would get is a vague association with a bus , a cab , a car or at best “background music” in a popular café .
In this day of iPads , laptops , BBM’s and MMS…., the list goes on ad nauseum , the radio as a means of communicating news, entertainment or education has become almost obsolete.
And yet , no longer than a generation ago people’s lives were closely intertwined with this vital means of communication .
Of all the major inventions of the twentieth century, few have had a more profound impact on people’s lives than radio and television. No description can ever completely convey the role that broadcasting has played on generations of listeners across continents , straddling oceans and deserts, mountain ranges and rivers ; people suddenly realized that information could travel around the globe in a matter of seconds and minutes , as opposed to hours and days as it previously had .
Radio broadcasting reshaped nations and politics , economies and culture trends , it made people dream , laugh and cry but the most pertinent aspect to this exhibition is that it left mental , psychological and circumstantial associations forever engraved in their minds.
“Sound Interpretations” is the title of Mutaz El Emam’s new show ; a body of fifty three works, some in acrylic on canvas and some in ink on paper that may look at first glance , so diverse in subject matter until you realize that the thread that brings the whole exhibition together is that all works were executed in 2013 purely to the sound of the radio and in response to all the memories the different broadcasts evoked in the artist’s mind and memory.

"CMYK" - 2013

A solo exhibition by Mutaz Elemam curated by Maie Yanni at Tache Art Gallery.
In printing processes CMYK is the subtractive colour model used in colour printing whereby Cyan, Magenta and Yellow are the primaries . K stands for “Key” and is obtained by intermixing the primaries which yields a muddy black .
El Emam uses this model allegorically in his quest to invite the viewer to re-examine a painting from first principles.
His prime concern as an artist and responsibility towards the onlooker is the essence of what a painting really is ; what you feel is what you see.
By stripping the work of all preconceptions , fancy jargon and complex rhetoric he invites the viewer by giving him the “key” to interact freely , and without intimidation , with the canvas at hand and asks him to draw his/her conclusions with the same weight of responsibility that he has infused into making the work.
Evident in El Emam’s work is the continual interweaving of depth and research in both the intellectual and the process of crafting the artwork. And like a good craftsman , he prepares his tools , his mediums and his substrates very carefully. Then comes the lengthy process of working and reworking the canvas ; he questions himself and his work continuously in a deliberately analytical drawn out thought process.
Colours are very important to El Emam, he has turned them into a language of his own and he uses them to tell you what he thinks and how he feels , yet , unobtrusively gives you all the space and freedom to draw out your own conclusions.

Exhibitions:

Solo Shows:
“Paintings”-Cairo Atelier-Cairo,Egypt-March 2008
“Colours in Symphony”-Kunst Art Gallery-Cairo,Egypt-Feb 2009
“Black Touch”-Alblad Art Gallery-Cairo,Egypt-Nov 2009
“The River”-Artellewa Art Space-Cairo,Egypt-March 2010
“Climates”-Al-Mashrabiya Mohyudin Abou El Ezz Art Gallery-Cairo,Egypt-May 2010
“CO2”- Al-Mashrabiya Mohyudin Abou El Ezz Art Gallery-Cairo,Egypt-March 2011
“CMYK”-Tache Art Gallery- Cairo , Egypt-February 2013
“Sound Interpretations”- Gallery Misr, Egypt- January 2014
“SELFIE” – Cordoba Gallery - January 2015 – Cairo-Egypt
Mutaz Elemam in Alexandria -April 2015- Museum of Contemporary Art

Collective Exhibitions:
“Agenda”-Biblioteca Alexandrina-2009-2010-2011
“Africa Cam Art”-Cam Casoria Art Museum-Naples,Italy-Dec 2009
Nord Art- The Kunstwerk Carlshütte-Budelsdorf,Germany-June 2010
“Taches Taches”-Saint-Lo,France-Sept 2010
“Shadows of Memory”-Fa Gallery-Kuwait-May 2011
MENASA –Art Fair Beirut,Lebanon-July 2011
“Collage:100 Years On”-The Gallery-Cairo,Egypt-Nov 2011
“Sketch of life”-Almarkhiya Gallery-Doha-Qatar-May 2012
“A Selection Of Contemporary Sudanese Art”-Boushahri Gallery-Kuwait-June 2012
5th Beijing International Art Biennale-Beijing,China-Sept 2012
“Art…Freedom”-Zamalek Art Gallery-Cairo,Egypt-January 2013-02-12

Mutaz Elemam

About Mutaz Elemam

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