About Me

Painting and drawing has fascinated me ever since I was a child. To that effect, I was fortunate enough to nourish my desire in this domain and learn a great deal about art and its many fields during my school years at Cairo American College (1978-1984). C.A.C introduced me to a great variety of courses, such as painting and drawing using different mediums (i.e. batik, screen printing, watercolors), along with other branches of this domain such as calligraphy, pottery, woodworking and welding, all of which I have explored. On the other hand, another domain pulled my interest and that is the “world of psychology”. Therefore, I chose to explore this field for my undergraduate studies and received with honors, my Bachelors of Arts Degree in Psychology from the American University in Cairo. Seeing that these two domains became very important in my life to the extent that I considered them two sides of the same coin, this coin to be the result of my ideas and feelings, hence the “painting itself”. So, deciding to turn my hobby into a career, I then enrolled in a few art studios in Cairo to enrich and evolve my techniques and was fortunate enough to learn from artists such as Magd Segini, Omar Mahfouz and Mohammed Safwat. Other studios were in Paris where I explored the art of painting and drawing portraits and even enrolled in the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts for figurative and live model painting. There, I explored different mediums such as charcoal, “sanguine”, China ink and of course, oil painting while applying them all to serve the study of portraits, anatomy and landscape. Today, I feel ready to present my ideas using all these mediums and their techniques for diverse themes and subjects.

As for my method of approach upon a subject matter to portray, I always use two principal characters (light and dark) both of which play an essential role to accentuate or diminish a certain sensation and/or idea. Equally, I can insert other characters if in need, all depending upon the message that I wish to deliver to the spectator. In certain paintings, the “dark” represents for me captivity, weakness and despair. “Light” on the other hand, gives me the feeling of hope, relief and liberty. However, even though in certain paintings “darkness” dominates sometimes, the presence of a strong impression and luminosity overrides most of the time. But one must not forget that sometimes darkness serves positively such as to define and strengthen a certain idea or form. In conclusion, I would like to express that even though representations of light and dark are not always similar nor applicable in every day life, I always like to believe that one should never lose hope regardless if it begins with a tiny flame and sometimes from a minute tone of dark.