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How a random mark is made to blossom

Friday August 17 2018
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No 26, left, and No 19 by Hussein Halfawi. PHOTOS | FRANK WHALLEY | NMG

By FRANK WHALLEY

“Each painting begins with a mark made at random and that suggests something to me. I make another and apply different colours and they and the shapes suggest other things to me and then the painting and I start to guide each other…”

Thus the artist Hussein Halfawi expounds on his working method.

He went on, “I don’t like to explain my work because it is for you to feel it in your own way.”

Halfawi describes his paintings as abstracts, although most of them are of such clear subject matter — a jug of flowers, groups of people talking, single heads as imperious as Nubian ancestor figures — that they indicate some predetermination of the subject.

Or are we being told that a single initial stroke suddenly becomes the line of a nose, or a hairline or a shoulder and — hey presto! — another painting is born? It is possible of course, but the canvases are so fully realised that I suspect that at least in some of them the intention must be clear to the artist before he loads his brush.

I also suspect, judging by the decorative appeal of his work, that his hand is occasionally mysteriously guided towards what sold well the last time out, and that his mind is able to interpret that important first mark in ways that steer the ensuing internal conversations towards subjects, compositions and colours that have previously done the trick.

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This ability to improvise while keeping his goal in view must surely owe something to the rigorous formal training Halfawi began to receive at the College of Applied and Fine Arts of the University of Khartoum… “Began to” because, after entering the college in 1988, he lasted only one year before being expelled with 41 of his fellow students for what were described as political reasons, in a purge executed on behalf of the incoming military coup leader Omar al-Bashir.

"Political reasons” translated as “socialist leanings,” which amounted to an ability for the man to think for himself and possibly, dangerously, even question the wisdom of the new regime.

It was almost inevitable that Halfawi followed the trail to Nairobi pioneered in the mid-1990s by Kojour Izzeldinn Suleman who has since moved to Canada.

Kojour was followed by Abushaaria, and in 1997 came Halfawi, Salah Ammar, Hassan Fadul and Eltayeb Dawelbait. Since then the exodus from Khartoum has continued, the best known of the more recent arrivals being Fawaz Alsaid and Yassir Ali.

All these artists maintain a recognisable Sudanese school, hallmarked by freely flowing colour, richly textured, often highly detailed surfaces and in some a propensity, particularly among the later arrivals, to treat their paintings like textiles, turning surfaces into grids with each rectangle containing another of the Sudanese traits, their tendency to feature traditional Nubian symbols such as palm trees, crocodiles, cattle and horns, said to give protection from the evil eye.

Both Dawelbait and Halfawi relish Sudan’s rich culture (Hafawi was born in the ancient Kingdom of Kush) and make frequent references to Nubian ancestor heads; either single, grand and aloof on the recycled boards and cupboard doors that mark Dawelbait’s more recent work, or, in the case of Halfawi, incorporated into groups conversing before rivers and pools of luminous paint that stain the canvas and drag you ever more deeply into the picture.

Thirty five of Halfawi’s paintings can be seen until August 26 at Louise Paterson’s Tribal Gallery on Loresho Ridge, Nairobi; a private house that has been turned into a furniture, fabrics and art showroom. His exhibition is called Soul Revolution, although I am not sure why, or what this title means.

Whatever the title, Halfawi’s paintings sit well on these walls.

The colourful canvases attract the eye, yet about one-third of the paintings are on paper. Of these, a select few are monochrome, and it is these that for me have greater dignity. They are quieter but given time seem to speak more loudly.

None of the works is titled; they bear only numbers that refer to the catalogue.

Said Halfawi, “Titles restrict the meaning to a literal context”... which means, as he made clear to me, that he wants his work to be open to any interpretation anyone may want to put upon it.

Although described as abstracts, all the paintings are plainly figurative. Each contains recognisable human figures or objects, including that bold jug of flowers. The background washes could be said to be abstract in that they celebrate colour for its own sake without apparent reference to the central subject.

Enriching the surface and adding depth are Arabic calligraphy (of the artist’s own design) plus occasional fields of thickly patterned colour, achieved by pressing a sheet of heavily painted paper onto the canvas. Sometimes fabric is pressed into the wet paint too.

The result is highly decorative work that announces itself without overwhelming whatever else could be around; ideal companions to tastefully furnished rooms.

I was reminded of the English expression, “You can do whatever you want — just don’t frighten the horses.”

Halfawi explained it perfectly in three sentences:
“Each painting reminds everybody of something. They can see what they want in it. Their only purpose is to please the viewer.”

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