Sep 28, 20222 min read

Sanctuary - Art series by Ashraf Zamzami

Updated: Nov 30, 2023

ASHRAF EL ZAMZAMI - JM Art Management — ASHRAF EL ZAMZAMI, The Cleanse, 2022

Ashraf Zamzami, a genuine one-of-a-kind talent, has presented another thunderous collection of works in his distinctive art brut (outsider art) form of expressionism. Zamzami's paintings have a profoundly sophisticated aesthetic aspect evocative of European expressionist masters. This meditative and exploratory form of expressionism is first and mainly the result of deep contemplation and introversion, which can only be reached in the true tranquility of one's mind.

Zamzami graduated from Minya Academy of Fine Arts and studied art on scholarship in Italy before gaining popularity in Egypt and abroad for his art refreshing purity and stunningly innocent yet profound nature.

True to form, the works in this latest collection are in the vein of Zamzami’s established abstract-figurative experimentation, specifically with his interpretation of the human body, as we see these figures of his imagination as the central protagonists of his most recent canvases. A generally bold and cheery palette belies the inescapably melancholy mood and, at times, inexplicable remoteness that his paintings evoke in the observer.

There is a persistent impression in these works that the artist has made a tangible retreat into the depths of his brilliant imagination, a sanctuary of mysterious seclusion that we cannot hope to understand but only to bask in its wondrous musings that come to life after he applies paint to canvas in such beguiling fashion.

In a single word, the artist describes this newest work as an act of spontaneity. We see frequent scenes of figures laying, resting, reclining, and sleeping in this collection, all of which evoke feelings of a reflective dream-state, a type of visionary experience that the other compositional elements of his canvases, which envelop these meditative figures, encourage and accentuate.

Color blocks, rudimentary patterns made out of dots, squares, or lines, and a skillfully cultivated palette that shows an adeptness at combining and generating shades of color that few professional artists can achieve, provide his paintings a raw expressive strength rarely seen.

Amid this perplexing composition, Zamzami provides us with pleasant glances of familiarity in the shape of basic images of the most ordinary items in sharp contrast to his otherworldly inventions.

These images that we can grasp onto in the sea of an enigma that is his canvases are of such things as the table, kettle, shisha, pot, sink, lamp and boat, and most of all, the piano, with its alternating keys and which is the most recurring motif in this entire collection.

The piano’s significance lies in its representation of several eternal concepts, like duality, which its black and white keys signify, mirrored in the yin and yang symbol of the Far East. It also underscores the melodic nature of his paintings, which often appear as resplendent symphonies of color.

Most of all, however, it signifies the idea of states or stages, which is the very meaning of the instrument’s name. The piano, which we see in various abstract and deconstructed states across this collection, is, therefore, a subtle and subconscious reference that the artist is making to that of his own life; its trials and tribulations, telling the story of its procession and progression in a silent song of art.