Between 16 October and 30 November 2018, Galerie Mark Hachem invite us to rediscover a 20th century Master, the Egyptian painter Hamed Abdalla (1917-1985).

The exhibition will showcase previously unreleased pieces that define the artist’s main styles, its evolution, and his research. The first series lets us discover his early period - twenty or so small format pieces, all extremely rare – where a shadowless light shines harshly on the existential tragedy that is the life of many Egyptian people. Abdalla describes his kin with compassion in his unique, faithful yet economical way, without anecdote, expressive rather than realistic.

In the early 50s, colour starts imposing itself in geometrical patterns that cut through the drawing. The work starts incorporating elements taken from popular scenes, from the gigantic stature of ancient Egyptian sculptures and from the sculptural figures of the primitive arts. The characters almost become caricature, but they are true people from today: fellahs depicted like kings.

I aim at painting people for the people.

(H. Abdalla)

He leaves Egypt for Denmark in 1956 where he spends 10 years before settling down in France for the following 25 years. In 1957, when researching the Arabic word for “face”, he invents “the creative word” a new concept that will define his work from 1961 until his death. Abdalla’s work starts with the arabic alphabet whose letters evolve into human beings. He illustrates each word with the actual letters that it is made of and by doing so he limits the choice of shapes available to him. He concentrates his work on the placement of these pre-ordained shapes, as well as on the choice of material, in order to achieve “Det Skabende Ord”, “the creative word”.

Abdalla creates something tremendously powerful, a dramatic synthesis of calligraphy and figurative art. It is this concept that make him a unique artist, a true master of his genre.

Abdalla creates something tremendously powerful, a dramatic synthesis of calligraphy and figurative art. It is this concept that make him a unique artist, a true master of his genre.

In the beginning was the word.

Abdalla was mystical, an avid reader, a philosopher and he reads the first words of the gospel of St John into the texts of ancient Egypt as well as in Islam. The “Logos” becomes universal and words like Hope, Sadness, Love, Defeat, Slave, Fugitive, Lovers and Scheherazade become beings per se “with their own physiognomy”.

A unique atmosphere pervades from those stances, glances and textures; melancholy and fatalistic mixed with resistance and hope. His work, from the 40s to a few years before his death, talks to us about the human condition; the batting of an eyelid, a furtive movement that opens up all the choices and harbours the exhilaration of infinite freedom.