Of Fire and Stone

When fire meets metal, oxides metamorphose into brilliant amalgams of pigmentation. Stone, however, remains unchanged. And every time, you get something truly different, as seen in Mohamed Abla's new sculpture works, presented at Gallery Misr.

“I hadn't sculpted in 25 years, but when I started I saw that I had quite a lot of technique and I could really work,” he says. During his training as a visual arist, Abla studied sculpture for one year in Switzerland with sculptor and poet Paul Grass. With exercises on techniques, learning the sense of each material became more like play.

He  learned how to meditate and develop a greater level of patience, an asset that, according to Grass, is essential to be a sculptor. 

After one year, the fruit of this labor produced an award winning “Sisyphus” statue, which can now be seen in Walsrode in northern Germany.

Abla is especially fascinated by fire with its transformative ability, and stone with its enduring, unchanging form and composition. The stone pieces are naturally found in his surroundings on long walks in the desert around the Fayoum oasis

On Egyptian artists who have influenced him, he cites Abdel Hadi ElWechahi, who touched him with "his view of himself as doing heroic and noble work"; Sobhi Girgis, who made him love sculpture because "he saw it as a mixture of joy, purity and simplicity"; the faces of sculptor Ahmed Abdel Wahab also captivated him. As he explains in the exhibition notes: “all this I have been gathering.. all that, to come back now and present what I have been able to produce over a year of play, patience and a desire to own the space and leave my impact on it."

"For me, every piece caries its own special story, and recounts the secrets it contains.. the secrets of materials and their transformation through heat, manipulation and sculpting."

Click to enlarge

According to Abla, sculptors and artists in general take themselves too seriously. The creative process in art is all about play, and if it departs from play it becomes something else, but not art. "You have to let go.. and play with the material."

Contemporary sculpture in Egypt, he says, tends to be limited, as it follows closely the style of pioneer sculptors like Adam Henein. Even thought the Aswan symposium gathers sculptors from all over the world for a yearly exchange of ideas and know-how, Abla sees that the artists sculpting today tend to stick to one style and are moot to experimentation.

He loves forms that are natural, that express something about Naure and Humanity. "Yes. There is this concern that if we keep going [the way we are now], we may destroy the earth."

His inspired new collection is a fresh start in a new direction for this seasoned artist and painter. Follow ALOHA Cairo to see where the collection will show next.