On Friday evening I went to the Tate Modern to see the exhibition of Sudanese artist Ibrahim El-Salahi.
El-Salahi was born in 1930 in Sudan where he trained in calligraphy & painting at Khartoum's School of Design in 1949-52 he also studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. Some of his paintings include calligraphic lettering, geometric forms. Room n 3 in particular where the colours in the paintings reminded me of the desert, warm, dry earthy colours also throughout I noticed a limited use of colours but stone tones which made me think of Sudan, the pain of the land, of the culture/politics and it's problematic nature through his work I could feel the pain, dark versus light colours in his paintings and the initial struggle to combine his own culture with western culture in terms of artistic training out put or to find is own to true voice artistically speaking. There are also portraits that he did when he was studying at the Slade which are done in western academic style but don't feel they are truly him with their bright well positioned colours, most of his best paintings have a really limited use of colour which made me think more of his Islamic, Arab, African visual style,background, calligraphy.
The best painting I thought also in this section called Alphabet n2 which reminded me of Paul Klee's work (unlike the other paintings in the room) it's in the artist's collection which means it is particularly important to him. Most of the paintings include, birds, people with faces that look more like machines such as Funeral and the Crescent 1963.
A procession of mourners that carry a corpse toward us the viewer. All of his paintings are done with a single point of view, one focus and in this particular painting again he uses earthy minimalist selection of colours as the serious machine like faces carry all the pain of death in their simple lines which is actually quite powerful, simple movement lines of the figures make you think the artist is leading you to something else more spiritual also given by the half moon symbol which is present in several of his paintings and connected to his Islamic/Arabic background. I found most of his work visually perfect of someone who is striving for perfection in his work overall quite figurative even in his abstract elements and skilful from a traditional academic background. His paintings in Room 3 with the desert earthy self contained tones combined with circles made me think of ancient history from a great culture but then the culture becomes broken & contorted hence the shift to dark tones, the experience of the artist of pain from his own culture and a heavy dreadful history. El-Salahi was imprisoned in the harsh Cooper prison for 6 month and 8 days, malnourished and living in fear of being harmed physically. Following in room 5
there is a particular work that remind me of stream of consciousness in writers, inspiration through time and space and Carl's Jung Collective unconsciousness where past, present, future connect open up through the process of art itself so the collective unconsciousness finally connects. To move on to room 4 the Room with work using inks and called The Tree.
In El-Salahi works there is a shift, a movement from pain as seen in previous paintings into spirituality from earthy colours and dark tones to bright lines, the lines of the trees as a form of spiritual meditation, doing each line as a form of meditation like we can see in The Tree 2003. He reconnects to his own culture through nature and spirituality but recreates his own tree.
This is a really informative video on Ibrahim El-Salahi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI5LnvjBPjI
