Depicting ordinary people is an uncommon theme in contemporary art, and in Egypt there are few artists who focus on depicting people who in most respects are not extraordinary.
Among artists who have chosen such people as their subject matter are Omar Elfayoumi, who focuses on people in the streets and cafes, Samir Fouad, who depicts belly dancers and domestic workers, and Fathi Afifi, whose theme is blue-collar workers.
Prominent artist Ali Ashour has a different perspective on such subject matter. In his new collection, Faces of the Margin, he presents fantastic portraits of ordinary people who lived in working-class areas of Alexandria back in the 1950s and 1960s.
Around 50 mixed-media paintings by Ashour, one of Egypt’s leading artists, are bringing back the spirit of popular life in Alexandria at the Zahwa Gallery in Downtown Cairo between 8 and 30 April as part of the biography of the cosmopolitan city.
The people revealed in the collection suggest many interpretations not limited to mirroring aspects of their lives. “Such people could be marginalised socially, culturally, or economically. They could suffer from social or political oppression,” Ashour explained in an interview at the gallery.
Visiting the exhibition, it is easy to get the impression that the characters depicted in the paintings suffer from social estrangement. They also do not belong to the present time.
Their faces typically belong to people who lived in the 1940s and 1950s in Alexandria: women with beautiful wide-open eyes wearing colourful summer hats and letting their hair fly free in the sea wind; a woman holding a water vessel made of pottery; fishermen wearing white sun hats; an unhappy bride and groom in old-fashioned wedding suits; dreamy women meditating behind windows; and the shadow of a horse coupled with miniature houses and human portraits.
“They are my people. My memory is full of images of the people I have met and have lived with. It is also full of the details of the daily life of the past,” Ashour said.
The collection could also be viewed from a surrealistic perspective. Ashour explained that this gives access to both life events and what goes on beyond reality. “Religious and cultural concepts contribute to forming our attitudes and behaviour,” he said. “Realism in art can mean symbolism and surrealism as well.”
Ashour’s last exhibition, Estrangement, took place at the Motion Art Gallery in Cairo in 2021, and a feeling of estrangement looms over the current collection as well.
“Estrangement is a basic element of my special concept of art,” he said. “Primitive inscriptions on the ancient walls of caves show that ancient people resorted to art to confront their feelings of fear and estrangement,” he explained.
“Throughout the ages, man has not been able to overcome his feelings of estrangement, although it takes different forms in modern life. Nowadays, in such a complicated world, humanity faces unprecedented feelings of alienation,” he added.
Windows, doors, and arches are frequent motifs. “They reflect the spirit of the streets of Alexandria, where I have roamed with great pleasure. The humidity leaves its effects on the textures of the walls. Wooden windows and doors are naturally eroded by the humidity in such a coastal city, and as a result they have their own special charm and are even seducing,” he said.
This is one of the main features of Ashour’s art. Depicting the effects of passing time on people’s faces is one of the artist’s main themes.
Some paintings use specific materials to give the impression of old and dusty surfaces. The viewer gets the impression that there is a conversation going on between the figures in his paintings. They never stop communicating, even silently.
“Old Alexandria lives in my memory as my greatest inspiration. As a child, I used to explore this city with my father and enjoy its enigmatic spirit, especially in the downtown seaside cafes and the places where the Italians and Greeks used to live. I remember walking for hours in districts like Kom Al-Dekka, where I spent my youth. It was like a constant carnival,” Ashour said.
“However, the city has changed.” He expresses his fascination with the older city through mixed media pieces that reflect his curiosity in examining different materials, mainly oils and various inks.
MEDIA: “I start a new painting with a clear mind, not considering the technique first. It is always a mutual dialogue or an artistic attack on the white surface,” he smiles. Another interesting aspect of his art is his keenness to mix raw materials to create certain colours.
Throughout the collection, there is a clear concern for economy. “I believe in poor art. Artists can produce fantastic paintings with inexpensive materials. What counts is how to make unique paintings that reflect their artistic character,” he says.
Working in oils, pastels, and watercolours create an impression of depth.
A small collection of monochrome paintings recalls black-and-white cinema. There is explicit drama in Ashour’s art and a mixture of the old, the modern, and the contemporary, making it a collage of time periods.
His figures look like equals. It looks as if they support each other. They may all be living in the same neighbourhood and meet to celebrate a special event or to recall special memories. “I am against any social or political authority, even the ethical values imposed by people on themselves. Everyone has habits that he needs to liberate himself from,” Ashour says.
Some paintings are inspired by the tides, with Ashour explaining that he has tried to paint the Mediterranean Sea that faces Alexandria, as if remembering conversations with friends on the beach in winter, watching the grey colour of the sea.
It took the artist two years to complete the collection. All the paintings on show, made in 2023 and 2024, are 35x50 cm in size. “When I was obliged to leave my studio in the Alexandria Atelier, which sadly was taken back by its owner a couple of years ago, I started painting on a smaller scale because of the lack of a studio. But it turned out that this size was easy to handle,” he says.
Some of the paintings reflect the influence of the ancient Graeco-Roman sculptures that can be found in different parts of Alexandria, especially in the Graeco-Roman Museum.
“Studying these sculptures was an essential part of my art education. I love sculpture, but I haven’t experienced myself as a sculptor yet,” Ashour said.
“But I find great enjoyment in creating volume and depth when I use tough materials to create multiple layers, and the foreground and background can often be regarded as the third dimension of the paper surface. I like making layers that resemble the crust of the Earth,” he added.
Ashour was born in 1946 in Tamadur Alley in the Karmouz district of Alexandria, a popular district that welcomed people from Tanta and other cities who migrated to settle in the city and work in its factories in the 1930s.
“My grandfather was one of the first generation to relocate to Alexandria,” he noted.
Ashour is also self-taught. While he started studying at the Painting Department of the Fine Arts Faculty in Alexandria, he was obliged to quit when his father suddenly passed away. Instead, he had to find a job at the Ministry of Justice to support his family financially.
Meanwhile, the young artist was keen on attending lectures by the great Alexandrian artists Kamel Mustafa and Hamed Eweis at the Architecture Department in addition to attending workshops at the Education Department.
“Academic education is not limited to the university,” he says. “It all depends on the quality of the education you offer yourself.”
In 1964, he worked for a period for a caricature magazine in Cairo, where he acquired a sense of sarcasm and social critique. “But the art of caricature didn’t satisfy my desire for painting, so I decided to quit,” he said.
He joined the contemporary art movement in the early 1970s. He is a huge admirer of Beethoven’s music, and a great reader, particularly of Latin American literature, with Garcia Marquez and the Greek novelist Nikos Kazantzakis being favourite writers.
He is reluctant to use the term magical realism to describe his own work, however. Instead, he believes that the key for any artist is how to turn a painting into a magical piece that enables the viewer to see the world from a different perspective.
Painting human portraits is Ashour’s greatest passion. However, he has never thought of painting as a means to make money. “I would sit in a cafe for hours just to draw people’s faces and discover more about human features and the unlimited thoughts and feelings faces reveal,” he said.
He has painted hundreds of portraits, many of which were exhibited in two solo exhibitions in Alexandria in 2001 and 2002.
“Visual art is an act attached to daily life but also detached from it in a way,” he concluded.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 1 May, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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