Since bright, attractive colours are usually the main theme of summer, people couldn’t help but feel positive vibes when viewing the colourful portraits shown at NOUT Art Gallery in its latest exhibition. Despite the differences in each painting’s technique, all are drawn in cheerful dazzling colours that attract the attention of eyes and leave the audience with a mixture of delighted emotions.
The doors of the small gallery, located in Zamalek, look like a time machine that takes visitors into a different world, one that is filled with colours, intensity, and excitement. The summer collection exhibition gathers twelve young immature artists, each of whom put on display some of their finest portraits and sculptures.
Many of the young participating artists are showcasing their work for the first time. Unlike other big famous platforms, NOUT Art Gallery mainly aims to support unknown artists by displaying their work to the public.
“Many of those from the younger generations are really talented, and only seek to be discovered,” said Morad Fakhr El-Dein, NOUT’s owner. “My goal is to set tomorrow’s most shining artists on track and give them an opportunity to meet the audience.”
As a sculptor, Fakhr El-Dein personally knows the struggle unknown artists have to go through in order to convince a gallery to show some of their work “even if it’s as good as famous artists’ work”. That was the main reason behind establishing NOUT Art Gallery.
“I don’t care about an artist’s popularity. As long as they are talented enough to amuse an audience with their art, they are qualified to display their work at my gallery,” he added.
The gallery opened its doors to artists and visitors less than a year ago, allowing audience members to meet new artistic talents. However, some of them were met with overwhelming worship. “At our previous gallery, there was an unknown young artist that participated with only one painting. However, most of the people who came instantly fell in love with it on first sight. It was asked to be bought over nine times in just a few weeks,” Fakhr El-Dein explained.
amog the most attractive displayed portraits that cannot be missed is “the rose”. With intense yellow, blue, and green stripes in the background, and its pink and purple colours, “the rose” portrait is one of the most eye-catching paintings in the exhibition.
“I was inspired by tattoo art when I drew this rose,” said Clinton Alexander “It’s as simple as tattoos with its sharp dark outline and its intense colours.”
Alexander is a high school art teacher who follows his passion for art in the summer. Combining different mediums together in one painting is one of the unique elements found in Alexander’s work. Markers, house paints, plastics, metals, and wood are all used together to produce portraits with different textures.
“I found this gallery by coincidence,” he said. “I was having a normal walk in Zamalek when I passed by it and decided to leave some of my work samples at the door. I found Mourad calling me afterwards saying that he is interested in my work, and he asked me to participate in his next exhibition and here I am!”
Even though he has applied in several other galleries, Clinton was always met with refusal due to his lack of popularity.
Walking in the same line, Mohammed Mahmoud’s paintings were all about colours and lines, yet in a different way. Through his portraits, Mahmoud features the normal life of people in Egypt in an abstract art form. In sharp consecutive thick lines, he draws shapes and people who are practising their daily activities.
In his three displayed portraits, Mahmoud features a young man riding a bicycle, a musician playing his instrument, and a clown trying to entertain people at the circus. “In my drawings, I state our sufferings and life in a way that is far from reality. That is the core of art,” he said.
Through my paintings, I want to show all aspects of human life, Mahmoud concluded.
