MOHAMED KHEDR

1970, Cairo, Egypt.

Mohamed Khedr is a graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts (Set-design Department), Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt (1993). He holds a Graduate Diploma in Folk Art, Arts Academy (1995). Since graduation, he has worked in the fields of computer graphics, décor, and then become a studio artist since 2010.

“My question is always about the values of art and the connection between human’s personality and identity, to what extent and how was it is so sophisticated. What makes art so beautiful? Is it that aesthetics is central to any exploration of art?”

Mohamed Kedr’s pictorial research questions both the formal and conceptual aspects of the medium: painting is an act of questioning because the reality is perceived and translated by the artist’s sensitivity, to be then shared in a new form.

Over the years the artist has experimented with various techniques; in the most recent phase he has come to consider the fundamental values of painting in a way that is new to him: the series of canvases, Q Project 2020, places in a dimension in which the limits between figurative and abstraction blur (and then, beyond the programmatic declarations of some artists, have they ever been clear? ), in this way giving importance to the composition – considered precisely as the disposition of the elements that form the subject – the chiaroscuro values (the grayscale prevails, which however does not annihilate the colour, which, suffused, appears from certain areas), the ways of treating the matter (these are in fact mixed media paintings), the proportional relationships.

These images/visions evoke something that is both recognizable and confined to an “elsewhere”: they perhaps derive from life, from memory, from a mental dimension; they induce us, however, to contemplate and reflect. In our relationship with them, we are taken by a sensation that seems to belong, at the same time, to the presence and absence – indicating probably, as the titles of the works indicate, a phase of transition from a previous condition to a subsequent one.

“I think art is about an act of observations and life experiences. Through my time in Florence between all this rich momentum of wonderfully unique art everywhere trying to digest this artistic history combined with great souls around me, forgetting all my previous experiences, as if I were so naive with a fresh memory. The moment came to present my final project in AD’A 2020… I closed my eyes, questioning again what I can offer after my studies in the bastion of art … using my artistic spirit, I started as a self talk to my self in a spontaneous improvisation, trying to translate an important part of human meanings, rid of any experiences or visual references that I studied or carried out previously and set out freely., like a speech in front of a crowd with a totally impromptu scenario.

I worked on unprimed canvas, with monochromes to focus on my inner artistic soul to connect with a variety of human meanings. This achievement will never happen while separating between creation and art process, will never be in daily life distractions, like I used to do, this experiment opens a new undiscovered horizon to me. I made this mini collection as a reflection of my endless questions.”