Moataz Nasr

Maria Golia, The Power of Place: A brief contextual portrait of Pharaonic references in the work of 14 artists from Egypt in Cairo Modern Art in Holland (catalogue of the exhibition, by William Wells and Janine van den Ende).

This attempt to distil a sense of place on to canvas is advanced to abstraction by Moataz Nasr in atmospheric works where layers of embattled texture and dry, airy color reflect the strata of history and the anomalous desert phenomenon that is Egypt.

To read more about Moataz Nasr's work and to see the paintings showed in this exhibition: www.cairomodernart.nl (in English and Dutch)

Nigel Ryan, Not quite a sylvan scene in “Al-Ahram Weekly”, 4-10/01/2001. (www.ahram.org.eg)

While the showing of Van Leo's photographs at the Townhouse closed this week, there is still an opportunity to see Moataz Nasr's impressive room of paintings on the first floor of the downtown gallery. These amorphous abstracts, acrylic on board, manage to escape the miniaturisation forced by cramming so much into the Mashrabiya. Half a dozen paintings in the room is quite sufficient. Nasr, fortunately, has avoid any limiting constraint, exploding across ample space and exuberantly so.

To read the entire article on the Internet: Nigel Ryan, Not quite a sylvan scene in “Al-Ahram Weekly”, 4-10/01/2001, www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/515/cu4.htm (in English)

Khaled Hafez, Wooden Skies. Moataz Nasr embodies the human dilemma with a chess game of mud and water in “Egypt Today”, December 2000, p. 36. (www.egypttoday.com)

Despite the commercial success of his paintings, Nasr does not intend to exhibit any this time. “Painting is a different story,” he explains. “It is a different language. You can't speak two languages at the same time. Installation is a language of expression I feel comfortable with, but painting is a language requiring another mood altogether. Although painting is part of my daily rituals, this does not mean that I should exhibit every single work I paint.”

Moataz Nasr in “Egypt Insight Magazine”, December 2000. (www.egyptinsight.com)

“Frameless is better,” Moataz insists “the painting needs to be able to expand the atmosphere around it without feeling strained.” Yet the framed pieces psycologically seems more finished; there's a finality to it that some of the others are not bound by.

But: “It's not healthy to pronounce a painting finished,” he says. “Some times you can get overexcited and declare it so, but it's like declaring that you're in love before you really get to know the person. You actually need time to reflect.”

Moataz is a self-taught artist who never received formal art education, though his mother was a painter. “When I left school, I studied at university but I quickly dicovered I never wanted to do anything but paint. It took effort but in the long run I feel myself to be more free as an artist than if I had gone to art school.”