Page 157 - Ahmed- Nawar
P. 157
side the Scene of War
Nawar's experience in the drawing includes collections of other experiences that are not directly
related to the war. I found it is necessary to refer to some of them so that the vision of the experi-
ence becomes more integrated.
Fayoum Faces
The "Fayoum Faces" experience is one of the most important experiences in Nawar's drawings.
They are the faces that were painted on the sarcophagus of Egyptian mummies in Fayoum in the
period of Roman rule in Egypt. It is believed that its beginnings go back to the first century AD.
The drawings show a figure of the person buried in the coffin, usually a great or well-known figure.
It is likely that these faces were drawn during the lives of their owners and then kept hanging on
the walls of the dwellings until death, and then they were removed and placed inside the strips on
the mummy's face.
The idea of Fayoum faces collection begins in 1995 during being Head of the Fine Arts Sector
when the artist held an unprecedented exhibition of Fayoum faces that were borrowed from the
Egyptian Museum. The exhibition ran for a year at Ofok Gallery attached to Mr. & Mrs. Mohamed
Mahmoud Khalil Museum. Throughout the year, he was paying a daily visit to the exhibition, which
achieved a kind of great communication between the faces and him. Through his regular contem-
plative visits, he felt the vitality and the excessive expressiveness of those faces; he drew twenty
artworks that he displayed in Cairo and attached them to an exhibition at the Papyrus Museum in
Vienna, Austria. After visiting the museum and seeing seven faces of the museum's acquisitions,
he drew them as well and held an exhibition of 27 artworks of Fayoum faces; he exhibited the
seven original faces alongside his artworks in 2005.
Nawar is wondering in that experience: what if the soul returns to the owners of these faces now?
It is a recall of the idea of the soul back again to the owners of these faces in contemporary time.
Nawar weaves the faces with their ancient vocabulary with the vocabulary of contemporary life;
some details of the faces come out of their old borders and disassemble to be mixed with contem-
porary vocabulary that penetrates the new space and draws their new formations. It is a mixture
between contemporary life and the ancient memory, and between the face of the ancient past
immersed in its stillness and eternity, and the face of the present open to its new fears.
There are geometric shapes, equipment, parts of weapons, and aircraft that penetrate the aura of
the old face. The shoulders of persons who are carrying plants and flowers are encircled by rem-
nants of war, electronic chips, and parts of engineering buildings, while the chest is penetrated by
cracked buildings; the heads are involved in the mechanization circle and studded with banners
and flags. The frame of the sarcophagus containing the mummy's face disassembles into slices
and enters into mathematical visual equations. Parts of cranes and modern structures encircle
the deep eyes enamored with the void, metal slats penetrate the curly hairstyle, and a flower
ring is crowned a girl's head with an arch divided by standard signs, surmounted by an arrow as
if it's the crown of the new life. Arrows are adjacent to a ruler divided into units of measurement
surrounding the face, and the units of measurement may penetrate the face itself as transparent
slices that redraw its features; the dreamy face is surprised by rays of sharp light that move its sta-
bility and integrity. There are fences of intertwined geometric and figurative surfaces that surround
the face of a meditating old man. In treating each face, Nawar preserves an external aura that
surrounds it. It may represent the borders of the sarcophagus placed down the image of the face,
but he reforms and tones this external shape and breaks its regularity with motifs and drawings
belonging to the contemporary world.
155
Nawar's experience in the drawing includes collections of other experiences that are not directly
related to the war. I found it is necessary to refer to some of them so that the vision of the experi-
ence becomes more integrated.
Fayoum Faces
The "Fayoum Faces" experience is one of the most important experiences in Nawar's drawings.
They are the faces that were painted on the sarcophagus of Egyptian mummies in Fayoum in the
period of Roman rule in Egypt. It is believed that its beginnings go back to the first century AD.
The drawings show a figure of the person buried in the coffin, usually a great or well-known figure.
It is likely that these faces were drawn during the lives of their owners and then kept hanging on
the walls of the dwellings until death, and then they were removed and placed inside the strips on
the mummy's face.
The idea of Fayoum faces collection begins in 1995 during being Head of the Fine Arts Sector
when the artist held an unprecedented exhibition of Fayoum faces that were borrowed from the
Egyptian Museum. The exhibition ran for a year at Ofok Gallery attached to Mr. & Mrs. Mohamed
Mahmoud Khalil Museum. Throughout the year, he was paying a daily visit to the exhibition, which
achieved a kind of great communication between the faces and him. Through his regular contem-
plative visits, he felt the vitality and the excessive expressiveness of those faces; he drew twenty
artworks that he displayed in Cairo and attached them to an exhibition at the Papyrus Museum in
Vienna, Austria. After visiting the museum and seeing seven faces of the museum's acquisitions,
he drew them as well and held an exhibition of 27 artworks of Fayoum faces; he exhibited the
seven original faces alongside his artworks in 2005.
Nawar is wondering in that experience: what if the soul returns to the owners of these faces now?
It is a recall of the idea of the soul back again to the owners of these faces in contemporary time.
Nawar weaves the faces with their ancient vocabulary with the vocabulary of contemporary life;
some details of the faces come out of their old borders and disassemble to be mixed with contem-
porary vocabulary that penetrates the new space and draws their new formations. It is a mixture
between contemporary life and the ancient memory, and between the face of the ancient past
immersed in its stillness and eternity, and the face of the present open to its new fears.
There are geometric shapes, equipment, parts of weapons, and aircraft that penetrate the aura of
the old face. The shoulders of persons who are carrying plants and flowers are encircled by rem-
nants of war, electronic chips, and parts of engineering buildings, while the chest is penetrated by
cracked buildings; the heads are involved in the mechanization circle and studded with banners
and flags. The frame of the sarcophagus containing the mummy's face disassembles into slices
and enters into mathematical visual equations. Parts of cranes and modern structures encircle
the deep eyes enamored with the void, metal slats penetrate the curly hairstyle, and a flower
ring is crowned a girl's head with an arch divided by standard signs, surmounted by an arrow as
if it's the crown of the new life. Arrows are adjacent to a ruler divided into units of measurement
surrounding the face, and the units of measurement may penetrate the face itself as transparent
slices that redraw its features; the dreamy face is surprised by rays of sharp light that move its sta-
bility and integrity. There are fences of intertwined geometric and figurative surfaces that surround
the face of a meditating old man. In treating each face, Nawar preserves an external aura that
surrounds it. It may represent the borders of the sarcophagus placed down the image of the face,
but he reforms and tones this external shape and breaks its regularity with motifs and drawings
belonging to the contemporary world.
155
