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, are homogenized into a painter’s mind that is in every manner of the word, genius.
Ashraf El Zamzami, our longest standing current resident artist, and undoubtedly one of our brightest ever, delivers another tour de force of illustrative expression this October 22 to November 12, after being absent from our calendar last season. El Zamzami’s painting is in its own class amongst Egyptian contemporary art, with Safarkhan founder Sherwet Shafei declaring him with her expert eye the country’s foremost contemporary figurative artist before his 2020 exhibition ‘Solitude’, which marked a sensational return to form after a lengthy hiatus. It is abundantly apparent why, as soon as one is catapulted into Zamzami’s ethereal world, brimming with the limitless possibility and emotive aura of a gifted imagination. His 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, are 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.
‘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 are 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.
