Art Out of Sudan.

Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery Winnipeg, Canada January 5-March 3, 2001

In the wake of renewed interest in contemporary African art, the Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery in Winnipeg mounted "Art out of Sudan," which explored the diversity of Sudanese culture primarily through the work of Sudanese artist Ahmed El Sharif. Organized by curator Ray Dirks, the exhibition displayed more than thirty-five mixed-media works which link the divergent philosophies of Islamic and African traditional aesthetics. The winner of the 2000 Premier Prix award from the Salon des Arts Plastiques in Paris, El Sharif continues the rich cultural synthesis that began with the Khartoum School and its leading artists, Ibrahim El Salahi and Ahmed Shibrain. The Khartoum School created and defined a Sudanese aesthetic that embraced Islamic, Nubian, African, and Western influences. Since 1995, El Sharif and other young artists from Sudan have risen to prominence in the artistic communities of Africa, Europe, and beyond, exhibiting in Madrid, Paris, Cologne, New York, and Toronto.

The colors of the Sudanese landscape dominate El Sharif's palette. For him, the red earth, the yellow sun and sand, and the blue of the Nile and the celestial sky of Islam are continual sources of inspiration. Motifs of ancient Nubian culture--such as the zigzag, signifying the Blue and White Nile Rivers that flow through the capital city of Khartoum, or the triangles that symbolize the Nile delta--give a subtler meaning to the works. Since Islam forbids human representation in art, some artists create stylized human and animal forms along with geometric shapes and patterns to imply the infiniteness of God. El Sharif incorporates figural and geometric forms to depict the infinite variety of human experience. He references African art in the masklike facial features of his figures, like those in the painting The Rath, which resemble sculptures of African divinities.

It is perhaps because of this approach to his art practice that El Sharif has encountered opposition from Islamic fundamentalists. Yet his work reflects the artistic canons of Islam in its repetition of line and use of geometric patterns and shapes in varied forms to suggest the awesomeness of the Creator. The square, which in Islam symbolizes the earthly realm and the Ka'ba in Mecca, figures in the artist's canvases; for example, a painting in the exhibition called The People of the Cow (Fig. 1) is divided into a grid pattern similar to the sections of an Islamic courtyard or garden. Though El Sharif's work appears innocuous, it highlights the tense relationship between the differing religious, political, and cultural entities existing in Sudan.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

For the past twelve years El Sharif has experimented with various materials to create textures. His method of painting bears similarities to the Action Painters' spontaneous application of paint onto canvas. Using a mixture of house paint, glue, gesso, crinkled tissue paper, granite, and acrylic paints, he builds areas of low relief, which he then paints over. This three-dimensional surface contrasts with the two-dimensional geometric patterns and forms, which are used in Islamic art to create a spiritual path. As a Sufi Muslim, El Sharif views every object, person, and event as symbolic of something esoteric. His tableaux are surreal; the figural examples capture the mystery and wonder of fleeting moments of everyday life, and his more abstract examples are concerned with mystical happenings. The figurative works in the exhibition at first appear to be abstract, but it is only after concentrated meditative viewing that the images are revealed. This is the case with the work Untitled (Fig. 2) in which a female figure emerges from geometric forms.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

The paintings in "Art of Sudan" convey a feeling of calm and peacefulness. Yet the viewer is energized by the vibrant and harmonious mixture of colors and textures and the spontaneity and sense of movement in El Sharif's works. This last impression perhaps reflects the state of flux created by the dynamic blending of Islamic and African aesthetics that marks contemporary Muslim African art practices. The figures in Across the Desert display an inner calm amid the whirlwind of daily life, perhaps echoing El Sharif's own peripatetic life.

Islam and African aesthetic traditions have found common ground in the work of Ahmed El Sharif, proving that the divide between disparate cultures can be bridged. Both these traditions arise from philosophies that praise spiritual creativity. El Sharif's interpretation of these influences has transformed and broadened the definition of contemporary African art.

VICTORIA PALMER, a freelance arts writer in Winnipeg, Canada, is finishing a degree in art history at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg.