Currently showing at Mashrabia Gallery in Downtown Cairo is ‘Still Life’, the latest collection of acrylic paintings by local artist and designer, Amre Heiba. If you’ve never see Heiba’s work before, this exhibition makes for a great crash course on his style with over twenty acrylic paintings on display.
View here.
View here.
In 1979, Heiba began working with an art group at the Goethe Institute and has been participating in various exhibitions since then, including solo shows and international events. This exhibition is Heiba’s first public showing since 2008.
With decades of exhibition experience and three years since his last show, one might expect to find a newfangled style or fresh spin on Heiba’s old game. However, for the majority of pieces on exhibit, they echoed of similar methods used before.
Obviously clever, the ironic title of ‘Still Life’ is a mismatch for the collection in its entirety. Each piece swells with a feeling of disorientation. Messy arrangements of human and animal characters are paired with various representations of topics including time, space, and society; how they interrelate, and are often indefinable.
These disjointed scenes of daily life travel from painting to painting. Repeating the use of the same characters and topic representations, Heiba organises and distributes their placement differently. For example, in one painting, this pair of Tim Burton-esque, one-dimensional characters are side by side with other imagery in the corner, where in another painting, they can be found separated; dropping the concept of connection all together.
According to Mashrabia Gallery’s press release: ‘Amre Heiba’s new work creates for the viewer a sense of disorientation. Although it represents scenes of daily life; time and space remain undefined, almost suspended. Human beings and animals are part of the scenes, but the artist treats them as objects, reason for this exhibition’s
provocative title: Still Life.’
Satiated in colour, the paintings provide a little visual stimulation at first glance. There are also some fun characters used such as the aforementioned elements. However in total, the exhibition lacked fullness for this reviewer. For the majority of the paintings, most of the canvas was covered in one colour block; leaving little room to really make out what Heiba was going for in combining the characters and topics at hand.
If you’re looking to purchase a piece of Heiba’s work, price guides are available on the gallery tables. The paintings range from 3500LE to 12,000LE. The exhibition will continue showing until April 7th.
With decades of exhibition experience and three years since his last show, one might expect to find a newfangled style or fresh spin on Heiba’s old game. However, for the majority of pieces on exhibit, they echoed of similar methods used before.
Obviously clever, the ironic title of ‘Still Life’ is a mismatch for the collection in its entirety. Each piece swells with a feeling of disorientation. Messy arrangements of human and animal characters are paired with various representations of topics including time, space, and society; how they interrelate, and are often indefinable.
These disjointed scenes of daily life travel from painting to painting. Repeating the use of the same characters and topic representations, Heiba organises and distributes their placement differently. For example, in one painting, this pair of Tim Burton-esque, one-dimensional characters are side by side with other imagery in the corner, where in another painting, they can be found separated; dropping the concept of connection all together.
According to Mashrabia Gallery’s press release: ‘Amre Heiba’s new work creates for the viewer a sense of disorientation. Although it represents scenes of daily life; time and space remain undefined, almost suspended. Human beings and animals are part of the scenes, but the artist treats them as objects, reason for this exhibition’s
provocative title: Still Life.’
Satiated in colour, the paintings provide a little visual stimulation at first glance. There are also some fun characters used such as the aforementioned elements. However in total, the exhibition lacked fullness for this reviewer. For the majority of the paintings, most of the canvas was covered in one colour block; leaving little room to really make out what Heiba was going for in combining the characters and topics at hand.
If you’re looking to purchase a piece of Heiba’s work, price guides are available on the gallery tables. The paintings range from 3500LE to 12,000LE. The exhibition will continue showing until April 7th.