Author: ArabianRecords.org

The Sudanese artist Mubarak Hemoudi, who is 77, works in the United States, but his paintings reflect his experiences in Sudan, including scenes of violence he witnessed in his youth and the daily suffering of residents, and especially women, of Sudan’s Darfur region.

Born in Sudan’s North Kordofan state in 1944, Hemoudi moved between the country’s southern and northern regions during his youth and now divides his time between the United States and Sudan. “I get inspired by images from Khartoum and come to America to paint,” he said.

Hemoudi recently displayed a series of his paintings in Northern Virginia in an exhibition titled “African Art and Tales from Sudan.”

Through 38 images of Darfuri women—some from the Baggara tribes in western Sudan, some from the Dinka tribes in the south and other groups—the exhibition takes visitors on a time journey to the past of Sudan’s rural regions.

Art as a Call for Freedom.

His art is influenced not only by the violence he witnessed during his youth and the tyranny of tribal leaders over peoples’ lives, but also by his experience of the patterns of daily life and interactions among the residents of Sudan’s various regions.

He explained that Sudanese art exists more in the natural environment than in urban areas such as Khartoum, which was influenced by imported European cubist and abstract art movements. All regions of Sudan are saturated with African art with an Arabic touch as a result of the first Arab immigration to Sudan’s western and northern regions, he said.

The Influence of Kushite Art

Hemoudi studied fine arts at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Khartoum, which was established in the mid-1940s, before moving to Germany twice to study textile printing and color science. These skills later helped him improve his paintings’ aesthetics and master the use of lines.

In most of his works, Hemoudi draws on elements of Kushite art, one of the most famous types of African design and calligraphy used in drawings and decorations in many African countries.

The history of Kushite art goes back to Kush, a rich African civilization that originated in northern Sudan near the border with Egypt, nearly 5,000 years ago.

Kushite art is an art that stands on its own, Hemoudi said. “It is the origin of the existing arts and styles. It is hard to find an analogue of it in any other region,” he said. Its styles, he added, are characterized by a mix of simplicity, sophistication, and complexity.

The plastic arts in Sudan are a very old practice, according to Issam Abdel-Hafeez, a professor at the College of Fine and Applied Arts at Sudan University of Science and Technology.

“It was affected by the local scenery-rich environment, as well as the presence of Arab and African culture in its regions, which was reflected in the diversity of artists’ use of tools, such as the presence of fifty-one written languages other than Arabic,” Abdel-Hafeez said in a telephone interview.

source/content: al-fanarmedia.org

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SUDAN