HOSSAM DIRAR
HOSSAM DIRAR – BIOGRAPHY Egyp3an-‐born visual ar3st Hossam Dirar (1978) celebrates beauty. Combining fragmented images of faces, at 3mes of the whole body, Dirar paints chao3c, impulsive and richly mul3-‐layered texturized paleRes to express individual iden3ty. Selected as one of the twelve emerging ar3sts of great promise from around the world by Saatchi chief curator in their series 'Invest in Art' in 2013, Dirar resuscitates the two-‐thousand year old art of the Egyp3an Fayoum portraits. And while the Fayoum portraits were created to preserve the memory of each individual in the closest way possible, Dirar's portraits are invented iden33es, borrowed from an instantaneous stolen glance. Each work depicts an anonymous woman Dirar met – at a café, in a street, at an airport. He conceives his work as a re-‐interpreta3on of his memory, of that brief encounter, overlapping between the mul3-‐cultural characters of where they met and his personal take of that instant of visual pleasure. Dirar creates his own portraiture universe with knives and oil, elaborately adding layer over layer. Yet he manages to give the feeling of a quick rendering of a face before it is forgoRen. Perhaps the invisible that the ar3st is chasing in his work is the phantom idea of beauty, trying to con3nue the tradi3on of personifying 3me. 1995-‐2000 BA Fine Art, Faculty of Appied Arts, Helwan University Graphic design, pain3ng, printmaking and mixed media.
Hossam Dirar selected as one amongst 12 new emerging ar3sts of great promise from around the world in
Invest in Art -‐ on Saatchi Online
Curated by Saatchi Art, Chief Curator Rebecca Wilson.
SABHAN
BEAUTY AND
A D A M
THE
BEAST
HOSSAM
D I R A R
Tale As Old As Time, 2013 Oil and mixed media on canvas on wood 122 x 122 cm
HD-101 SOLD
Once upon a dream, 2013 Oil and mixed media on canvas on wood 121 x 115 cm
HD-102 SOLD
Won’t you come with me to paradise, 2013 Oil and mixed media on canvas on wood 131 x 84 cm
HD-103
SOLD
Tell me there is a heaven, 2013 Oil and mixed media on canvas on wood 107 x 81 cm
HD-104 SOLD
On the other side of the road, 2013 Oil and mixed media on canvas on wood 131 x 84 cm HD-105 SOLD
Before she disappears into midnight, 2013 Oil and mixed media on canvas 127 x 127 cm
SOLD HD-106
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall Oil and mixed media on canvas on wood 122 x 113 cm HD-107 SOLD
She is like the wind, 2013 Oil and mixed media on canvas on wood 141 x 133 cm HD-108 SOLD
Good girls go to heaven, 2013 Oil and mixed media on canvas on wood 141 x 141 cm
HD-109 SOLD
I promise you a rose garden, 2013 Oil on canvas on wood 142 x 113 cm
SOLD HD-110
I think we met before in my dreams, 2013 Oil on canvas 121 x 111 cm
HD-111 SOLD
Dangerously Ever After, 2013 Oil on canvas 121 x 111 cm HD-112 SOLD
As blue as true can be, 2013 Oil on canvas 135 x 100 cm
SOLD HD-113
Founded in 2010, ArtTalks | Egypt has established itself as a highly selective search engine for Egypt’s next generation of contemporary artists and an authority on high quality secondary market works by twentieth century Egyptian masters and many of the most important artists working today. ArtTalks manages the estate of the late painter and sculptor Dr Sobhy Guirguis, a seminal artist who just passed away in January 2013. Part of ArtTalks income is channeled into an Art Fund to support high potential emerging artists and to finance an extensive educational program aimed at growing the number of art collectors and art patrons in Egypt. We run a yearly curriculum on the history of Egyptian modern and contemporary art and invite scholars from abroad to give talks to the public.
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Founded by arts patron Fatenn Mostafa, former CEO of Gianaclis Vineyards for Beverages and former advisor to Bozar, Center of Fine Arts in Brussels, Belgium, the gallery is committed to the defense of freedom of art in Egypt and to strengthen Egypt's position on the regional art map.
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