Gamal Mahmoud
Al Kabas Newspaper

El-Maghraby transposes dreams of simple people engraved on walls into etching on zinc.

The Egyptian Ambassador Abd El-Rahim Shalaby in Kuwait inaugurated the exhibition of the plastic artist Mahmoud El-Maghraby in Boushahri Art Gallery where it is attended by some foreign ambassadors in Kuwait including the American ambassador Richard lebaron, the ambassador of Algiers and Indonesia and a crowed of plastic arts lovers. The ambassador shalaby expresses his happiness for the good art works in El-Maghraby's exhibition.

He ascertained in his speech to press on the Kuwait .

He said that the cultural activities are the most important elements in enhancing the relations between the two countries and that the exhibitions held and shared by Egyptian artist are important factor in this aspect. He added that countries all over the world try to strengthen their cultural relations to make their people nearer to each other enhance their people nearer to each other and enhance their relations including exchange of various arts between each other.

Simple people's dreams:
This exhibition contains various group of plates in which El-Maghraby depends on zincography in order to reflect generally an artistic excellence and strong presentation of history, place public spirit.

El-Maghraby started in his plates by recording drawings of folklore on walls with its natural spirit whether they are drawing or words that express simple people's dreams, life simplicity and heritage transportation where he drew on some of his plates ancient coins, letters or unclear writings.

What made El-Maghraby distinguished in this aspect is that he did not draw the public wall by its reality, rather he changed it into a type without its details and known shape but he maintained its spirit through colour formulations with its suggestions and consisting relations.

Zincography:
It is known that zincography is one the most difficult arts and requires a lot of effort and persistence as well as creative vision. It needs several processes starting with etching by special tools for this purpose, then printing process which consists of several steps and before all that one should prepare the idea before starting the etching process.

El-Maghraby says he has loved this difficult art since his artistic start, this love appears in fact in his accuracy in work especially when using his colours side by side with white and black which add difficulty in executing the plates and suggest the need to special skills. This means that he had the tools, which enable him to express on zinc plates his ability to create, and his practical experience etched plates.

When El-Maghraby held his first exhibition when he was a sophomore in the faculty of line arts, he chose the cultural place in rod El-Farag district north of Cairo which indicated his early belonging and royalty to this public place full of life and pulsating with meanings, pains, grieves and dreams.

This relation is still dominant in his later art works with its different expressions.

Walls in Egyptians folklore culture means a lot as a way to set free social, political and human suppressed, place configuration and myth dignity and pride.

Doors:
What is applied on public walls in El-Maghraby's plates is applied also on iron doors, which are repeated in several of the plates in the exhibition.

Here the iron door dazzled the eyes with its strong and wonderful presentation as a deceptive symbol for safety and imprisonment and as an expression for the place aesthetics in the folklore life.

El-Maghraby uses sometimes the printing cast in a unique way where the iron door itself reappear in another plate to materialize other meanings to clarify this deceptive meaning that we mention earlier.

In conclusion, El-Maghraby stays a promising youth artist who participated in many exhibitions in Cairo and Kuwait . His plates are in collections in Modern Art Museum in Cairo and in private collections in Egypt , Kuwait and USA . He won the prize of special arbitration committee for zincography in the eleventh youth salon in 2001 at arts palace in the Egyptian Opera House.

2nd of June 2005