Fatma
Provenance : : Property from a private collection, Egypt
Exhibited : : Cairo, Adam Henein Museum, Permanent Collection
Literature :
Notes : Published: Mona Khazindar et all, Adam Henein, Skira Editore 2006 The present work is accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity from the artist. "When I look back on that exceptional moment, I find myself wishing for the return of that event, aspiring to relive the instant when I learnt to see!" – Adam Henein In Adam Henein, we encounter a rare commodity, for it is seldom that a country gives rise to what can be deemed a "complete artist". Sculptor, painter, and printmaker, Henein's boundless versatility allows him to move from monumental monochromatic figurative sculptures to delicate zoomorphic figurines, and colourful abstract tachist oil paintings. His works are unified by a deep empathy and appreciation for his native Egypt, whose iconography and visual language he divulges in a thoroughly distinct and modern aesthetic schema. Influenced as a youth by his encounters of monumental Pharonic architecture of Luxor and Aswan, Henein was fascinated by the monolithic economy of ancient Egyptian sculpture, a characteristic he would apply to his own works, whose bold simplicity and temperate elegance reflect the nobility and grandeur of Egypt's Pharonic past. The present work is a rare glimpse of Henein at his artistic genesis, and is an example of one of the earliest sculptures the artist executed. Created in the year Henein obtained his diploma in sculpture from Helwan University, Fatma is a milestone work which demonstrates Henein's transition from student to artist, and which contains the embryonic features of his future artistic vocabulary. Naturalistic in comparison to Henein's later, simplified forms, Fatma depicts a female student which Henein encountered during his studies and for whom he developed a deep sympathy. Poor, despondent and destitute, Fatma deeply affected Henein by her plight and he recalls that it was her emaciated, withered appearance moved him to sculpt her likeness. Lean and morose, Fatma's elongated face evokes the feeling of a "spiritual thinning" reminiscent in some of Giacometti's work, and through this, Henein immortalizes her suffering within the contours of bronze. Much of Henein's work in this period focused on the suffering of women; this choice of subject is carefully selected for its emotional impact, in attempting to highlight social injustice and plight of the impoverished the image of the woman, whose inherent nobility, grace and nurturing qualities mean that the burden of poverty is experienced much more overtly when these attributes are eroded by hardship, making the transformation from maternal grace to withered destitution even more visceral. Although sombre, Henein is aware of the resilience and durability of his subject matter he depicts, which is reflected in the solidity and structural robustness of the material he employs. The ultimate message is one of a noble suffering, and beneath Fatima's fragility lies a enduring steadfastness common to the archetypal "mother figure", who Henein so often pays homage too.
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