Contemporary Art Platform (CAP), a non-profit private organization dedicated to developing and supporting the arts in Kuwait and throughout the region, held an exhibition last week of drawings and paintings by Syrian artist Amin Mahfouz.
The exhibition, held under the auspices of the President of the Kuwaiti Artists and Media Union, Dr. Nabil Al-Failakawi, was inaugurated in the presence of several personalities from the art world, including Dr. Yousef Ibrahim, and Dr. Suleiman Al-Askari.
Following a tour of the exhibition, Al-Failakawi expressed his happiness with the opening of the exhibition and with the works of the artist, and added that the paintings showed the artist’s strong interaction with life and society. Pointing out that art has no specific age limit, and continues as long as creativity flows from the mind of the artist, Al-Failakawi said that artist Mahfouz’s works were a great motivation for other artists to continue their work in the field of arts.
Speaking on the occasion, artist Mahfouz said: “I draw and paint to express the amazing and pure beauty of this planet, which was destroyed and is still being destroyed by mankind through wars and pollution.”
He added that the artist’s mission is to express his art and his feelings with an honest brush. He explained that his works were influenced by the impressionist school that reflects the analysis of color and light, especially the works of French masters such as Claude Monet and Édouard Manet, who are among the world’s leading impressionist artists.
Among the expressive titles on display at the exhibition were, the ‘The Conflict of Destiny’, ‘Sheikh Mubarak Al-Sabah Palace in the Early Twentieth Century’, ‘A Kuwaiti House in the Last Century’, “‘he Sword Palace in the Sixties of the Twentieth Century’, ‘Palestine, Lake Galilee from the occupied Golan’, and ‘Damascus, an old neighborhood from the last century’.
Artist Amin Mahfouz’s works record memories dating back to World War II, which makes his artworks a beautiful documentation of history. Born in 1933 in Ghouta near Damascus, he soon found his passion in the four arts — painting and photography, classical music, literature, and theater. Because of his love for the Syrian countryside in Ghouta, he wanted the subject of his artwork to be the nature of the countryside, including the orchards in which he grew up.
Mahfouz said that he specializes in portraying the Syrian, Palestinian and American countryside, according to the Impressionist school. When he moved to Kuwait, he began photographing old Kuwait, including architecture and structures that are no longer standing. During the transition to realism, Mahfouz also worked on photographing a number of realistic paintings and Arabic calligraphy.
He added that he worked as a painter for two years at Damascus TV in 1958, then moved to Kuwait TV when it was established in 1961. He continued to produce art while he was in Kuwait, and studied and produced works of art in many of the cities in which he lived, including Damascus, Munich, Paris and Milwaukee (Wisconsin) and Kuwait.
He has held many exhibitions, including the Spring Exhibition in the Damascus Museum in the fifties, the Schwaben Gallery in Germany in the sixties, at the Kuwait National Museum in 1970, Seine Street, Paris in the seventies, the Dylan Gallery in Milwaukee, 1998; the Plastic Artists Exhibition celebrating Kuwait Liberation Day 2003, and the Artists Exhibition Artists celebrating the National Day of of Kuwait 2004, and Boushahri Gallery Exhibition – 2020.
