The First Step

In front of my rapture backed by one of art galleries we came across, she exclaimed:

" You are an artist then!"
" Not at all. Don't know even how to draw. Just like to watch."

For the rest of our way together, my friend tried hardly to figure it out and to understand that complicated dilemma of how one may love art, especially plastic arts, and be able to communicate with them while not being an artist himself.

Actually, this is not the case of my friend only. It is the normal question heard when someone "discovers" that you read poetry for example while not being a literature student nor a poet yourself.
It is the normal question in any art gallery:

" Are you a Fine Art student? " , the normal skepticism :

" Do you really get anything from such scribble? " to have then a long vivid discussion that turns to be part of my own enjoyment.

In fact, you don't have to "understand" anything at the first sight. You have to "feel" first. Coming to this point, I always remember that scene of Shadia playing that role of an ignorant crashed servant in that old Egyptian movie," Nahno La Nazraa El-Shawk" \ " We Don't Plant Thorns", admiring a painting so much that she begged the lady to take it. She felt that painting seeing herself in it.

Yea, in a way , we can seek ourselves in art looking for our pits and pieces scattered between light and shadowing or carried out in some shape or color mixture or movement of lines. Art is the mirror that one can discover his countenance in.

Thereby, people sometimes fear real art, fear their hidden feelings and thoughts, fear both their uniqueness and their dark sides. Stephen Spender, English author and critic, mentioned once that the true artist awakens geniality in people.

On the other hand, Freud saw that the artist vomits any psychological disorder he has in his art; consequently, his audience do the same when communicating with this art.

However, art has to do with what is more than the mere light and dark sides in us. It opens our eyes letting us into new worlds or rather new conception of this world. Art is a treasure that most people haven't the necessary patience and courage to unfold it. Courage to look in its mirror and patience to find the keys of its secrets.

The first time I stood before a painting, I was in a deep water. Then, something whispered in my ears: " Patience! The artist painted this over several days or probably several months; wouldn't that deserve several minutes to contemplate? Your eyes will lead your feelings and mind."

Then, the crystal ball was opened; I began to feel things, percept others, find out new dimensions and relationships that govern the painting world, and felt a strange wave in my mind as if some sort of light is turned on there. It is like being tired, sleepy, and bored then having a good cup of coffee.

After all, the first rule of art is laid down: Art doesn't provide a ready made answers, it provokes the sighted questions with their infinite possibilities. Before a piece of art, just try to put your questions and a fruitful prologue will be there between it and you.

Two opposite Worlds Made of Black & White

Not just a technique, not just colors, not just shapes and spaces; it's a "vision" in the first place that creates art. A vision that creates this or that distinct and peculiar world in which you step forward to see feel, and realize thing anew. Even if this or that world is created inside the borders of a painting and I made only with two simple clear-cut colors: black and white.
In the "Resident Artist Exhibition", was held in July, at the Conference Center, West Exhibition Hall, Bibliotheca Alexandrina; two worlds have attracted my attention with their same element but nearly opposite visions. Those were the worlds of Tariq Hawas and George Fekry.
I was amazed before Tariq Hawas works: the black prevails, the white existence is very little but surprisingly is dominant, the conflict between black and white is clearly over for white which seems the weaker side. How did Hawas do that? What rules govern hi artistic world? Is it a mature vision that recognizes the world's darkness, evil, and nothingness and still able to believe in future, hope, and the better aspects of life to dominate no matter how lesser they are? Is it the support of shape and suggestions that made the black threatened and even overcome? White is the small plant that offers growth and fruitiness.
White is the lightening that finds it way through blackness subduing it.
White is the base and the roof that besiege the opposite force.
Don't let the spreading existence of the black deceive you; it's a world of hope and light.
On the other hand, George Fekry's painting present a semi- equal ratio of black and white, but the structure that white itself contributes in is a nightmare: broken sad faces and souls, a ghostly prisoner soul of a mare taken in a whirl, a continual conflict between every single bit of Fekry's painting. There is no peace in them.
At last, you find yourself divided between the two worlds: that of the victorious white regardless its small forces, and that in which white assures the force of blackness and darkness.

أميمة خليل ، و الكاتبة السورية أمل حنا