Fantastic art forms coming from southern Egypt have always fascinated me with their dreamy, surrealist, authentic and glamorous qualities. Last week at Dai Gallery in Zamalek, a retrospective of artist Mohamed Abdelmoneim (13 October-7 November) was an occasion to indulge this fascination. It included over 100 paintings and drawings. They elegantly adorned the walls of the three-storey building, representing different phases of a long career.

The underground floor included works made during the artist’s academic years and shortly after his graduation from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Al Minya University in 1988. They reflect his passion for portraiture and still life. In the course of time, the artist’s expressionist work developed more into a unique surrealism. A professor of painting at the Faculty of Fine arts in Menia, Moneim was born in 1965 in Sohag, Upper Egypt but spent most of his life in Minya, a city famous for its marvelous Nile scenery and ancient antiquities. Moneim earned his PhD from the Faculty of Fine arts in Minya in 2002 after a two-year scholarship in Spain. The thesis of his comparative study focused on the creative performance of Matisse and Picasso.

 It was hard to assimilate all the beauty of the retrospective in one visit. On my second visit, I came to see the collection as a reminder of ancient Egyptian civilisation, and ancient art in general, due to its strong palette of colors, dominated by powerful ocre, blue and yellow, which distinguish ancient Egyptian art. The exhibition reflects the artist’s fascination with the legends and folk culture of the south. Moneim managed to paint a world of his own, where the real intersects with the legendary in an authentic Egyptian format. Most of the scenes depicted in Moneim’s artwork are surreal, bringing to mind ancient Egyptian architecture, as most houses are depicted in the form of ruins of temples or tombs.

Moneim is not interested in sketching. He challenges himself directly on the canvas or hardboard surfaces. The recurring appearance of the marvelous moon shining on sand dunes in his paintings is due to his long meditation periods during his military service after graduation, which he spent in the desert. Although an academic painter, Moniem was keen on breaking the rules. One medium-sized acrylic on paper pasted on mdf wood portrait titled The Harlequin, dated 1996, shows just how much. The joker raises his hand with a bunch of flowers, hinting at surrender. The portrait resembles children’s art in its asymmetrical dimensions and its sarcastic vibe. Another series of oil on canvas paintings is titled The Moon Landing. One painting, sized 200x170 cm, depicts the moon right in the centre of the canvas, above two nude women are struggling over a man. The three of them are on the roof of a house whose two windows show another two human figures as if they were locked in their frames. Human figures and the house are both painted in ocre.

The impact of primitive and African art on the artist is evident. In a captivating painting titled Drum Rhythm of Old Age, sized 200x170 and dated 2021, a huge scene of intersecting female and male figures dance in a primitive way. The minimalist scene, like most of this work, is empty of any material substance, highlighting the human flesh and the communication of the human figures. In almost all his work, figures, women and men alike, are depicted nude. It is a romantic nudity that takes the viewer back to primitive times, when nudity was the norm. Except for his academic phase, Moneim focuses on the movement of the various elements. In many scenes, viewers can sense the movement of the globe. The paintings on show came out in different sizes. Larger-than-life paintings, however, dazzle the eyes. They may reflect the atmosphere of  thespacious desert and unlimited horizon.

Arabic calligraphy is remarked, especially in some paintings from 1994 and 1995. In a painting titled Neighbor of the Valley, sized 210x154 cm, the artist uses calligraphy as an element of the composition, merging a whole phrase ya jarat al wadi, from the Ahmad Shawqi poem, into the surrounding to create a single texture. In another oil on hardboard painting titled A Story from Ancient Time, dated 1995, calligraphy comes in handwritten small words, making lines at the bottom of the painting, which depicts a tomb, with tiny nude human figures inside it against an open sky. This sounds paradoxical, knowing that the art of Arabic calligraphy was associated with a tradition that tended to avoid figuration. Hence, such brilliant paintings by Moniem generate a unique tension.

A series of vertical one-size paintings titled Behind the Window, each 122x69 cm, depict the nude bust of a woman standing behind the window, with no details of the room she inhabits except for a lamp dangling desperately from the ceiling. The monochromatic paintings are all in shades of blue. Seen as a series of images, the repetitive scene recalls slow time and the depression these women feel as they seemingly wait endlessly. They reminded me of Picasso’s Blue Period, which focused on sorrowful moments of helpless characters in the streets. The artist carefully chooses his titles. They sound like the titles of poems.

From a philosophical point of view, the artist’s work could be categorised as surromantic whether for its depiction of intimate encounters between men and women, or its recalling of primitive life. In addition, one cannot ignore the erotic value of the artist’s body of work. The sensual nude portraiture of women cannot be bypassed. Seduction over the Premonition of Descent is the title of 144x144 cm depicting a woman in a light gown with her back to the viewer, dancing and playing with a snake, which in popular culture evokes a penis. In ancient Egyptian civilization, the snake is a symbol of fertility and immortality and in Christianity, the serpent connotes the original sin of humankind. The woman is depicted against a white background, which takes up the lower two thirds of the painting. The woman is seemingly locked down in a room or a tomb, for her socially unacceptable behaviour. The upper third is reserved as usual for the starry blue sky. A small moon is seen in the middle of the sky, casting its light on the whole scene, suggesting multiple interpretations.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 21 November, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the title: Larger than life