Moataz Nasr, Tamara Nouri & Juman Nimri
Existential Introspection
Ica Wahbeh - The Jordan Times Weekender
September 14, 2006

An interesting juxtaposition of artworks is on display at Darat Al Funun this fall, one of profound existential introspection that also invites reflection.

Moataz Nasr, from Egypt, is a collected artist who probes deeply into human nature but also into his own soul. His two video art presentations, photo exhibition and installation are gripping. They show preoccupation with human nature and a desire to put to rest his mind about a part of his life that, it seems, it is difficult for him to come to grips with.


The Echo, video installation, 2004

Using different media, the artist tackles both political and personal issues in his works exhibited in the Main Building. In the shorter than five minutes video “Echo”, two screens are positioned at 120 degrees and touching. The monologue in one is part of Youssef Shahine’s 1969 movie “El Ard”, made from the novel with the same name by Abdel Rahman Al Sharkawi (published in 1968), and, in the other, the same words told by Egyptian storyteller Chirine Al Ansary in a coffee shop downtown Cairo in a video conceived in 2003.

The impassionate discourse delivered by actor Mahmoud Al Meligui (who plays the novel character Abu Swelem), echoed by Ansary’s, delivers the message that in the 70-year gap - between the 1933 struggle against British occupation and 2003 - nothing has really changed in the stagnant Egyptian society. What was said then is valid now and, as repeatedly heard in the movies, the same issues plague the society, the same complaints are heard and people do nothing, only “living in words, nothing but words”.

Father & Son, video installation, 2005

Even more direct is Nasr’s video “Father and son”, the almost 15-minute search into the reasons for the alienation in the artist’s family.

Clearly attached to the mother and in awe (more terrified, actually) of the father, the artist, who grew in a house deprived of love, wishes to find out why, and why, if irreparable, there was no separation rather than a unhappy life with complex consequences.

Again using two adjacent screens, the two generations discuss the mother.

“I needed to be at peace with him [father] and myself,” says Nasr.

But if the discussion revolves around his mother, the issues he touches are far reaching, universal: The role of women in society, love, divorce, raising children, allowing women their rightful place in society where they can become fully contributing members, fulfilled and happy.

The film is not conclusive. The father’s blunt admissions do not seem to satisfy the artist, but at least he tries to talk it over, having realised that his life was greatly shaped by the conditions at home.

Insecure, sun print photography, 2006

Nasr’s photographs still deal with human nature. In the “Insecure” series, large photographic prints are made using the sun printing technique (“a very ancient method for producing images”, whereby “the negative is transferred onto drawing paper treated with an emulsion and exposed to the sun until the image begins to develop [and] then the photo is processed with industrial chemical elements”), the subjects are “Middle Eastern faces reflected in the water, portraits of people but also portraits of a society”.

Insecure, says the artist, “involves human security, the instability of our existence and the impossibility of recognising and being ourselves”.

Man Made, photo installation, 2006

In “Man made”, photographic diptychs capture men and horses (facing each other) with leather blinkers and muzzles (or bridles), incapable of seeing or speaking, equal in their plight and powerlessness.

The political implication, says Nasr, “is the human inability to relate in a concrete and active way to the political and state system”.

Fiat Nasr, photography, 50x50cm, 2002

Easier to relate to is the “Fiat Nasr”, the fist car made in Egypt, once a reason for pride and a propeller of the economy, now dilapidated, in disrepair and rusting with flat tyres in the streets. The computer-coloured cars, in vivid, happy nuances contrasting their rundown appearance, tell their own story, that of greatness and decadence, of neglect and disregard for a once great moment in a people’s history.

In the Blue House, two women artists deal with their own reflection of life and human condition.

Iraqi Tamara Nouri uses mixed media on canvas and blends acrylic with muslin and cotton fabrics to suggest that “man’s only crime is to be born into this life”.

She explores “suffering as a universal state of man”. Anguish and resignation or material destruction and desolation are present on her canvases. Faces are barely sketched, distorted and vaguely represented or rendered in remarkable details. Dark backgrounds, ripped fabric torn to reveal a blank backdrop, deep gashes, chasms that seem to draw inside, dizzying and scary are expressive methods of creation. The same gauzy material veils faces or serves as a background for them to be painted on.

Ochre, beige, white and black are predominant colours. A little pink makes the transition to the shocking blood-red canvas on which two heads face away from each other (one hanging upside down), alone in their suffering, disconnected, each living his own pain yet united by the single cause: Spilled blood.

The collage-like canvases are powerful, the images haunting.

Untitled, Juman Nimri, photography, 70x50cm, 2006

Jordanian Juman Nimri has her own take on introspection. Her black-and-white photographs, “in my studio”, are a contrasting study in still life that is nonetheless full of life.

“My studio is very dark; light comes in at specific hours, like magic. I feel I steal the light and the shadows it makes express my feelings: Loneliness, sadness.”

Regular geometric patterns, rays of light, lines - diagonal, horizontal, interrupted - and the whimsical projection of anything that comes in the path of light are quietly captured in Nimri’s photos.

Familiar shadows make one feel at home: The wheel of, or an entire, rocking chair, an easel, a pergola, furniture legs, a door ajar. They are reassuring, warm in their muted contrast, playful and charming. Often of a very artistic symmetry, the shades invite the viewer to a mental game of hide and seek and soften any sharp, rugged edge.

Black frames elegantly contain the photographs which make one linger, trying to discover more hidden details and familiar objects.

The images reflect deep sensitivity; they are delicate yet strong, probably best representing the diminutive artist and her character.