Ephemera by Ashraf El Zamzami
- julia_mji@me.com
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Ephemera by Ashraf El Zamzami
El Zamzami's art is untethered from any form of construct, real or imagined, and thus his painting is an out-of-the-ordinary experience that speaks to the very innermost reaches of our psyches. Zamzami’s art is born out of an ever-present duality wrestling perpetually inside his persona; this divergence of tortured individualism and spirited, almost childlike optimism is homogenized into a painter’s mind that is, in every manner of the word, genius.
‘Ephemera’ denotes the sense of fleeting transience that we experience with anything from people to events, to objects, and most significantly for Zamzami, to emotional and psychological states of being. This latter application is the animating impetus for Zamzami’s artistic process, for each iteration of his diverse periods of painting is defined by the condition of his mental and imaginative outlook. It is why in this collection of works, we are treated to another candid glimpse into the mind’s eye of an altogether precious artistic talent, with each piece telling the wistful story of impermanence, and the fragile nature of life’s experiences, all of which can be classified as ephemeral.
Zamazami, again in his cultured and astutely-worked palette steeped in vivacious bold primary tones, and accentuated by ones that appear as before unseen novelties borne from the artist’s brush, captures the essence of ephemera in various key stages of the lived human experience. From the clash and comfort of siblings, to the pride and pains of parental nurture, from youth’s obsession with beauty, to the uncertainty of middle aged solitude as the world passes you by, and the transitory magic of musical expression – the latter being one of the most potent manifestations of the ephemeral, Zamzami ironically envelops our senses in a paradoxically lasting capacity.
This collection constitutes another brave output from an artist whom we are truly honored to call an invaluable part of the Safarkhan family of resident artists, and with each consecutive exhibition, we delve deeper into Zamzami’s intellectual subconscious. What sets his painting apart is its undeniably extemporary and spontaneous essence, a form of artistic honesty that teaches as much as it provokes and inspires. Even after decades of hosting Zamzami’s enrapturing canvases, we still have not fully grasped the great depth and breadth of his imaginative force, nor the exact source of his phenomenal abilities. It is this enigmatic quality that we can at least always be certain of when it comes to witnessing Zamzami’s art. It is a brand of painting that is not to merely be enjoyed or experienced, but rather one that is to be continually interpreted, ruminated over, and wrestled with – and that to us is undoubtedly the pinnacle of artistic achievement and purpose.
Ashraf El Zamzami's art is untethered from any form of construct, real or imagined, and thus his painting is an out-of-the-ordinary experience that speaks to the very innermost reaches of our psyches. Zamzami’s art is born out of an ever-present duality wrestling perpetually inside his persona; this divergence of tortured individualism and spirited, almost childlike optimism is homogenized into a painter’s mind that is, in every manner of the word, genius. While Zamzami’s previous collection strayed into the realm of unrestricted abstraction, a more pronounced vein of naive art than even he is prone to, ‘Ephemera’ represents some of the artist’s most accomplished and compositionally refined set of works he has produced since his eventual return to painting.
El Zamzami’s art is imbued with a supremely cultured aesthetic quality reminiscent of the great masters of the European expressionist school and can be classified as art brut or ‘outsider art.’
Ashraf El Zamzami was a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Minya, and he fast made a name for himself in the local art scene in the mid-1990s with his palpably naive yet refined brand of expressionism that exudes a distinct sophistication despite being executed in a comparatively simple and modest compositional style. El Zamzami has garnered acclaim in his native Egypt and abroad for his art’s refreshing purity and strikingly innocent yet substantive nature, and after having featured with Safarkhan at several stages in the 1990s, he took a lengthy hiatus from art before returning to the fold most recently in his exhibitions with Safarkhan in 2019 and 2020.
Since his protracted hiatus from painting, El Zamzami has produced arguably some of the best work of his career, in a class of its own amongst contemporary Egyptian art, constituting a powerful creative reawakening, and earning him the distinction of Safarkhan founder Sherwet Shafei’s claim that he is Egypt’s greatest contemporary talent. El Zamzami’s art is imbued with a supremely cultured aesthetic quality reminiscent of the great masters of the European expressionist school and can be classified as art brut or ‘outsider art.’
The artist’s truly original style of expressionism is what makes his work so special, and it is foremost the product of the deepest introspection and introversion that can only be attained in the true solitude of one’s mind and body. El Zamzami demonstrates a more advanced and nuanced use of color pigmentation, one that is intense, cheerful, bright and optimistic. He also explores themes of abstract experimentation, specifically with his interpretation of the human form, as well as an exploration of the complex relationship between man and animal which he portrays through his depictions of both docile and threatening imaginary creatures.
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