| Playing Music with Sand |
I knew him, when he was student, filled with surprise, cautiousness and confusion while groping his artistic way. Also I knew him while struggling to gain superiority. From the beginnings of Abd ElWahab Morsi, he rejected marginality and always sought uniqueness. I knew him when he worked for the antiquities registration center, consequently living with ancient Egyptian drawings and became his daily food and also the air filling his lungs, circulating his spirit and mind. I also knew him when he assumed his position as one of the most eminent artists of 1970s, and after that, marked with his unique approach, as he never abandoned his originality in each of his continuous creative stages. Abd ElWahab Morsi is always diligent, innovator and believes that belonging to the roots is the source of originality , the continuity of civilization and the communication language between generations. There are certain pleasures in watching the artist grows and evolves every day, namely after the spread of his fame. The Abd ElWahab Morsi's artworks in the art complex, presenting bright pages in the great art volume and a painterly epic, where the lines and colors assume the roles of words and verses. He established his studio in the historical "Mesafer Khana" in Hussein district.. In this studio, located in the deepest part of the Fatemid Cairo, emitting the fragrance of originality and deep-rootednes, he spent the greater part of his life as a true advocator for the mission he believed in from his beginning, i.e., to adhere to his genuine Egyptian nationality.
The farmer is a drawer and engineer by his nature, as he uses his plow to draw paralleled canals in his field, then he surrounds his plants beds with geometric lines to distinguish each other cultivated area. No doubt that this logic is also applied on the ancient Egyptian artist, as his innate nature showed him the line value, the area importance and the borders wisdom. Consequently his drawings are 2D marked with definite borders, clear points and lines. It is also characterized with the spring colors and specters. The above-mentioned characteristics are ingrained in the Abd ElWahab Morsi's affection, since he started his artistic trip in 1960s, and his drawings acquired clear impressions, as he started his interest in the replacing the emotional expression from the faces with the eternity tranquility, also his interest in the surface smoothness and acquiring it the Asian lacquer smoothness. After that his lines swayed through decorative dancing as a celebration of the new change and the features of the daily life and ancient Egyptian environment were revealed, as if it is a return to history rumination and the hieroglyphic units and symbols covering the 2D plan, divided to geometric areas, like the Bedouin rug acquiring the backgrounds the joys of the wheat and broad beans fields, as if the atmosphere is 100% ancient Egyptian. Another stage started, where the personalities withdrawn and replaced by geometric formations and abstract symbols coping with the dominating abstract tendency, but through hieroglyphic language and pure Egyptian flavor. The dust and plant green constructs dominated the Artist palette, as if it is a period of sophist asceticism and this stage witness his sand utilization as a new media. At the end of his trip he crossed the borders of the green valley and sank in the desert sands bordering the green valley, i.e., the death town, and he dipped out a handful of the barren sands, reflecting them through non-funeral philosophical silence, as an end for the fresh colors and a declaration of the light victory. So wisdom replaced joyfulness and the sands became the new medium and alternative of brush and color mixing.. The sandy surfaces appear like new language, remind us with the relieves covering wall temples and tombs, as the protrusions assume new role in modeling as they older and more permanent than the color language, which is erased by the very hot sun and the definite time elapse. |
| Hussein Amin Bikar |
| Panoramas… |
Abd El Wahab Morsi presented us this year with his solemn compositions, formed from Egypt sands and saturated with its spirit and the charming fragrance radiated from its climate, endowed with Almighty Allah blessings for thousands years, in addition to the sophism hymns floating in the Egyptian skies from eternity, circulated in what the artist touching, handling his work faithfully and truly .. But he surprised us by the panoramic paintings, affirming his self-challenge, patience, performance capability , his tools control , deep vision and feeling clarity. This time he turned back to his old approach to realize through wax printing his love of the ancient Egyptian civilization, condensed it in hieroglyphic symbolic tastes, spread on his paintings like the most beautiful embryo in a symphony old like past time, an Akhetaton hymn in Aton temple or a farmer song, while he irrigates his land in the depths of upper Egypt without ornamentation or elaboration.. It is soft color like the dark earth. It is whispering and strength like eternity hum, and new addition in a dictionary full of renewed gift. |
| Hussein Amin Bikar |
| The worm sand talk |
When I view the several paintings, the artist Abd El Wahab Morsi created, how he has crossed very long trip, including using pastes and paints, I found that he has selected the sand rough touch, radiating from his paintings and imposes very deep effects, as this medium is very dominating and immediately move the viewer to the very far past, to the ancient Egyptian temples and tombs walls. This roughness is like the echo of ancient civilization insisting to be heard in the 20th century. These sudden and conflicting human mood changes may surprise us, taking in mind that the artists in the past paid close attention to the smoothness of their painting to acquire silky appearance and any surface roughness was considered technical defect.
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| Hussein Amin Bikar |
| New art called sculpturing/painting |
 Reviewing Abd El Wahab Morsi chart, since his beginnings as a draftsman in the antiquities registration center and his deeply affection with the ancient Egyptian art.. that gradually sneak into his painting, with its simplicity, symbolism, flatness and poeticism. The said affection grows and develops gradually and gained more independenency from its resources, freed from traditional stereotyping and the original character and the Egyptian pungent taste settled in his art, which is coping with his ever increasing move towards abstractionism. Abd El Wahab Morsi has created his art through the hieroglyphic non-simulated flavor, using the time element in the weaving, touch and color of his paintings to evoke the feeling of aging, until his personality fully crystallized and he becomes one of the banners of the Egyptian contemporary painting, aiming at realizing originality, contemporaneous and benefiting from the heritage without convention or convulsion. With the same eloquent talk through color pastes, Abd El Wahab Morsi speaks the same through the color language and he imposes through his experiment new dimension either in the surface or the touch as his memory is still aware that ancient Egyptian wall painting was not mere painting and the same as for the Egyptian relief as the wall painting usually accompanied the relief and dissolved in it, so it can be called colored sculpting or relief painting. From that sense Abd El Wahab Morsi started new stage, related to the heritage, using sand pastes to impose some protrusion, rising and falling harmonically on the painting surface, so the sand element act as brush competitor or ally through what we call sculpture/painting to acquire his artworks more hardness, existence and roughness intruding the viewer feelings. |
| Hussein Amin Bikar |
| Specialty and Uniqueness!! |
 After long absence the competent artist Abd El Wahab Morsi addressed us with the latest artworks in his exhibition at Picasso gallery, Hassan Asem st., Zamalek/Cairo. Abd El Wahab Morsi is an artist enjoying special position and specialty. He is famous for his wall painting, and his artworks reveals his superior ability of surface treatment.. It is sometimes deep-set, bas relief, high relief or rough. He treats spaces through his enormous ability and turns them to a part of the artwork. In brief Abd El Wahab Morsi engaged in the battle of the heritage revival through the gate of the plastic art or definitely from wall painting, without being trapped in heritage mania, i.e. he is modernist not radical.. Abd El Wahab Morsi is the Egyptian village son, within which he learned the country clear colors marking the Egyptian rural environment, in addition to its ethics in his time.. The creative artist created several artworks embodying man in the battle of life, apart from projecting his cultural origins, accordingly the decorative motifs exist and also the expressive lines complying with ancient Egyptian lines, free from literal copying. His color employment, figures compositions and decorative units, reveal the employment of his own vision in elements modeling, his high craftsmanship in respect of technique utilization and fertile imagination.. All abov-mentioned led to his assumption of his special and marked position in the contemporary plastic art arena. |
| Nagwa AlAshri – The Al-Ahram newspaper- 6/3/2005 |
| Egyptian nationality in art |
| The artist Abd El Wahab Morsi's artworks affirm certain fact opposing some aesthetic scientists' opinions, which divided arts and subjected them to senses, so some of them are visual, while others are tactile, auditory, gustatory or motional, and were oblivious of the senses interplaying and the same also applies on arts. The Abd El Wahab Morsi's innovative and new works has crowned the contemporary Egyptian artistic movement, after his long artistic trips his artworks are marked with stern seriousness and fertile renewed imagination, which places him on the list top of our artists, who honoring Egypt, inside and abroad. Following the artist trip, reveals his dedication to his art and feeling of his Egyptian nationality deeply impresses him in his life stages.. It is an innate feeling grows inside him and not an adopted doctrine or acquired diligence. It is an instinctive behavior emitted from him to unify his self, environment, connecting his conscious, unconscious knowledge, the past and the present. In sum he is an artist that has been created by his environment, drinks its water and his roots are deeply penetrating its soil, so he takes from it and gives it part of his spirit, consequently he has managed to create original Egyptian art and contemporary in the same time. |
| Mohamed Kandil |
| Abd El Wahab Morsi |
| Abd El Wahab Morsi is one of the contemporary plastic art symbols, despite his long artistic way; he never abandons development and innovation endeavors, despite the stability of his constants. He scrutinizes ancient history and turns its symbols to live instruments mixed with the present symbols. Abd El Wahab Morsi enlivens this ancient Egyptian heritage through contemporary vision, and if the constant in his artworks means the combination between the past and present, the variable is the expressive approaches, techniques and tools, as he starts his way by adopting academic expressionism, then passed through imaginative symbolism ended by combination between abstract and this imagination. No doubt he is creative and evolutionary. |
| Eman Mohran |
| THE TRADITIONAL AND THE MODERN |
 Exhibition of the Egyptian painter Abdel Wahab Morsi in Titograd In the Art Gallery of the Non--aligned Countries "Josip Broz Tito" the famous Egyptian painter A.W.Morsi performs an exhibition these days. He displayed 40 exhibits ingraphic and acrylic techniques; especially interesting are the works that this author creates using sand combined with connecting tissue. The main characteristic of his works is coloristic harmony, obvious stylization and a discreet foundation of the great tradition and culture of Egypt. That inspirative foundation enabled Morsi to transpose all those pictorial impulses-which this space bears into a new, specific and absolutely autonomous artistic expression.Stylization permits him to simply and logically define a deep interior narrative impulse by transforming it somewhere into an ornament of life and permanence and elsewhere into an atmosphere of space and its milieu. Using material which he encounters in immediate proximity, which he meets daily, with which he lives - he succeeds in putting this material, sand, into the function of its creative intention and refining it by his own artistic desire.Those visions of brave and justified intentions acquire, besides coloristic and structural also values of emphasized facture, juicy relief and sensible interior movement. Besides colour, facture and structure, besides tone harmony, tone echoes, light appears on the paintings-it enables the work to acquire a specific rhytm, that it is, in various light situations, differently experienced, that the painting has dynamism, constant movement. The graphics also bear all characteristics of this kind of painting. Their themes are concentrated and connected with figural apparitions which somewhere obtain embryonal characteristics. Pictorially , it acts very impressively because their wrinkled foundation (basically in gold) acquire a specific light accent and sound because of the reflex and shine appearing on the surface. This art of painting represents the completeness of pictorial narration and determination, it surpassed local limits by its universal transposition of space and atmosphere. The Art Gallery of Non-aligned Countries "Josip Broz Tito" owns in its holdings a large collection of Egyptian modern art so that the exhibition of A.W.Morsi represents a significant contribution to better understanding of contemporary currents and movements in this surrounding. It remains in permanent memory and expectance of new encounters. |
| Milan Marovic (Yugoslavia) |
| Art between subordination and independence Abd El Wahab Morsi |
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| Mokhtar Alatar |
| The Meeting |
The artist Abd El Wahab Morsi is famous for his special approach of artistic production. The viewer or who follows- up his artwork, can easily discern his artistic personality from the first instance, so what is the secret about that? Abd El Wahab Morsi graduated from the famous fine arts faculty in 1957. He resorted to the ancient Egyptian sources, due to his study and his continuous contacts with the secrets of the elegant beauty of the ancient Egyptian paintings, so he was fascinated with ancient Egyptian eyes, movements and bodies in his first stages, which extended for long periods. After that he turned the painting to the field for ancient Egyptian rhythms, through the exploitation of few parts and concentration on the abstract relations between the ancient Egyptian motifs, the collage approach utilization, drawing on the dyed cut paper pieces and some times with burned edges. He carried out great numbers of paintings by sand utilization. Also Abd El Wahab Morsi prepared several colors with different touches, utilizing the era technology in coloring, and local dyes sometimes to impose folkloric character on his artistic handling. "The meeting ", as shown from its title is one of the beautiful painting, within it the artist turned the figure apposition to plastic one. The artist assembled human forms with geometric lines in the painting to thirds in the left direction, in addition to a Nubian house form. The artist utilized the geometric forms, like the triangle, square, circle or ancient Egyptian stars. He also treated different kinds of rough areas in the left side, but this is not enough and that considered certain defect, despite that this artwork is beautiful and that imposed certain question: Is the absence of the artistic scales is favoring the artwork or not? Is the beauty feeling is related to getting free from the instruction restrictions? In fact Abd El Wahab Morsi's artworks, despite exceeding the proper limitations in the composition construct, doesn't lack the aesthetic feeling, due to the artist's ability in relation to attracting the receptor and turning the eye to follow the artist's paths and moving it away from the weakness points, and that is one of Abd El Wahab Morsi's creativity secrets. |
| Makram Henin |
| Drawing inspiration from the ancient Egyptian and Islamic heritage in new formulation |
How fortunate the artist who lives certain periods of social changes, eliminating the stale oldness, overthrowing the unfair occupier and heralding the emergence of new era, within which the society enjoys more freedom, independence, and clear inclination to justice principals affirmation. The plastic artist Abd ElWahab Morsi (67y.) is one of the fortunate who witnessed one of the most Egyptian fertile social change periods. He started his artistic career in 1956 in the midst of Egypt' Naser struggle, aiming at affirming independence and recovering people's property, so he has learned from this major historical events and adopted the progressive thoughts. Consequently he draws through an expressive approach charged with the cues showing the hideous aggression inflicted Egypt by three tyrant states, i.e. England, France and Israel. Abd ElWahab Morsi graduated from the faculty of fine arts, department of painting and during1950s, and 1960s, his painting were keeping pace, through distinguished artistic approach, with the social development and the national flow, that overwhelmed the region in these past days. Upon Sadat's assumption authority, the days U turned, the criteria had shaken and alienated thoughts dominated art and society… They were calling for overthrowing any Egyptian or Arabic and swimming in the rolling western waters.
Then Abd ElWahab Morsi began searching about his roots as an Egyptian Arabian artist and so his exhibition in the "Khan Almaghrabi" showed this tiresome trip's harvest. He presented 50 paintings; most of them were oil paintings. What attracts attention, in the first instance to this artworks group, is his ability of drawing his inspirations from the ancient Egyptian, Islamic heritages, presenting them through new formulation. The great artist explained that: "I have worked 18 years for the ancient Egyptian antiquities registration center and that proved to me how we are ignorant about our deep- rooted heritage". The theatrical scene in the painting: "Old Egyptian story", holding the painting heroines, painted through the ancient Egyptian approach: the face assumes profile and the body frontal positions. Surly the artist did not entirely simulate the above-mentioned ancient Egyptian drawings, but he reviewed their general form, for example women were armless and several details disappeared, like feet that settled in dark area. The artist distributed his paintings heroines through certain approach that enables the strong presence of the architectural constructs in the work, like the buildings calling our minds to the Islamic architecture grandness, in relation to the lofty facades , ornamented by several motifs, geometrical elements, like the square and the rhombus. In the above-mentioned artwork, the artist was freed from the classic codes staleness of painting art, like the "perspective", "form " and defining fixed light source, consequently the painted scene was flat, like the ancient Egyptian creative artworks on the temples' walls. He also replaced the perspective, the third dimension or levels' multiplicity, as there are some standing women in the same level of the architectural constructs and the others are settled on the ground level at the painting bottom. These levels variances are complying with the perspective according to the Islamic Arabic heritage of fine arts, as shown in the creative artworks of the predecessor artists. The duality of surface and color Since the emergence of the impressionist school in the second half of the 19th century in Europe, the artist was freed from following his predecessors of the good artists, upon carrying out the painting surface treatment, as the artists in the past centuries used to make the surface painting soft as possible, and this softness degree was considered one of the aesthetic values upon evaluation the painting, i.e., the softer the surface painting the higher the artistic value is. The situation is different now, as the surface softness or roughness is subjected to the work necessities or the painting subject. The artist Abd ElWahab Morsi selected surface roughness in most of his paintings, as it assumes an important role in relation to deepening our feeling of the painting historical aspects and its extension in the past time. The color paste of this artist is marked with richness and density, namely he has employed the chiaroscuro effects skillfully and ably. The late Egyptian poet Salah Abd Alsabour said: "the poem which unfolds from the first reading is mediocre ". It appears that I'm forced to quote this statement upon analyzing the artworks of this great artist, as you cannot settle on one interpretation when you view his painting in first time, as they insinuate not declare, whisper and not shout. For example in the painting: "The women and crescent" the feminine body is released from correct morphology ratios, drowned in a forest of areas, geometric decorations and the vegetative green, the symbol of good overflowing her body, while a crescent is settled on dark circle at the painting top. The sanguine color surrounding the crescent may points out to the evil and good struggle, as the green color is the symbol of this good. The inclination of filling the painting space with stern dark lines shyly penetrating the elements and areas, reveals that Abd ElWahab Morsi is drawing his inspiration from the ancient Islamic artist approach, who was scared upon seeing space, so he filled it with infinite net of plant and geometric decorations. On one hand that supported the religious thinking about Satan sneaking in space and on the other hand that affirmed the idea of Allah/ the absolute without beginning or end. One of the paintings of this marvelous exhibition shows that the artist approached the pyramid, this lofty building, no doubt as a symbol of the whole ancient Egyptian era. In this art work Abd ElWahab Morsi presented marvelous composition including several pyramids, different in volumes, forms, and are wisely distributed in the painting space, taking in mind that the interplaying of the painting elements, reveals their transparency, as if they are glass made. It is one of the characteristics of Abd ElWahab Morsi's approach, for example one of the pyramids penetrates a part of an ancient Egyptian face or this human group filling the painting bottom, whose forms were modified and summarized through and interesting geometric method. Abd ElWahab Morsi affirms his aversion of his people's embodiments and has clear opinion in this concern: "We have certain traits, features and methodology inspired from the origins, additionally the ancient Egyptian and the Arabic Islamic arts are 2D and the definition line of the forms assumes an important role in revealing them." The artist's occupation in relation to realizing the painting dramatic dimension principally is obvious. He successfully managed to employ color through certain method leading to the culmination of the drama plot. For example the shining yellow penetrates the darkness of the dark color or the clashing the warm red with the quite yellow, so the painting is bursting with marvelous heat. Abd ElWahab Morsi is smart and creative artist, marked with superabundant creativity, picking from the heritage the best to formulate it in updated artistic nets distinguished with correct rhythm and precious value, supported by overwhelming talent, fresh imagination and refined national feeling. |
| Cairo (ElKods Alarabi).. Naser Erak |
| Abd El Wahab Morsi |
 Abd El Wahab Morsi has been crossing his difficult way to develop the ancient Egyptian motif, and committed as a contemporary painter to the treatment of the painting surface and the suggestion of the presence of light protrusions like the ancient Egyptian wall paintings and participated by his works, which enjoyed the Egyptian art audience's great encouragement, due to their Egyptian originality, as the Egyptian audience in the 1960s, beginnings were seeking the Egyptian personality in the artworks, before the invasion of the European art fast developments. Abd El Wahab Morsi adhered to the Egyptian theme to the greatest extent, followed by motif moving. The motif may be hero or again a part of an abstract composition. Abd El Wahab Morsi is among the first painters, who utilized different materials on the painting surface, and paid close attention to the creation of different surface touches.
After that other artists were influenced by him, and in fact this experiment is completely new to the painting reality as a whole, since the first generation, additionally he opened the door for the interplaying between different ancient Egyptian/ Nubian decorations as influencing factors in the composition. Abd El Wahab Morsi was marked with his color density and using the paste knife skillfully and spontaneously, in addition to the availability of the intention element in all his compositions, so his integrated artistic personality acquired unmatched special hot taste, through the utilization of his hot colors, expressing the Egyptian nature. Abd El Wahab Morsi persistently produces his artworks, in addition to his continuous participation in the local and world exhibitions, and his fame spread out to European north, America and the Marquise University/ Missouri state nominated him for the honorary doctorate, and he was also nominated for the bronze medal of Albert Einstein Academy. His name is recorded in the French Larose and Italian Adaff encyclopedias. Apart from the abroad appreciation he enjoys huge asset of the audience's admiration, in relation to his evolving art, not restricted to certain limitations but ably move between the Egyptian heritage and the up-to-date handling. |
| Makram Henin |
| Creative and Inventive Artist |
 Abd El Wahab Morsi is a creative and inventive artist, the layman viewer may consider that his artistic stages are very similar, but close inspection, reveals the artist's enormous ability of imposing variability in a small part of the painting. His paintings' elements and motifs may appear that they were subjected to few changes only, but he imposes the changing touch, which serves these elements and the new color that enabling his painting to obtain new meaning. Abd El Wahab Morsi adopted the case of human figure simplification to communicate its idea to the viewer. It is not violent simplification, but it is almost derived from the external lines of the ancient Egyptian wall paintings and imposing contemporaneous character on them.. Despite the adherence of his thoughts to humanity in every condition, but they carries deep human causes and social visions with multiple versions. Abd El Wahab Morsi fully grasped the inherited folklore and that led to its complete formulation, through his superior ability and simplicity, presented in the square, triangle and other folkloric decorations, from which he grafts his works to communicate their concept to the receptor. Beside the inherited aspects previously mentioned, he ably utilized the ancient Egyptian palette: the blue, orange, red and dark brown, enabling him to reach the idea deepness, he wishes to express. Abd El Wahab Morsi artworks are based on unequal dividing of his paintings at most times and his motifs passes through these divisions armed with the artist's craftsmanship, related to carrying out figures and forms. Taking in mind that the triangular and crescent human figure are the tools of his artworks, realizing through them the whole artistic plastic values. His paintings' grounds are rich with the rough touch, soft and quite colors, circulating them some decorations like the squares, triangles and others to cope with other touches in the painting and establishing the balance between them, the human element and color. Other painting included other elements, like the fish symbol, to affirm the importance of good and fertility in the Egyptian land. When Abd El Wahab Morsi reached the stage of sand modeling, his aim was expressing folkloric decorative contents through the sand medium that enabled him to carry out unprecedented variable different touches in his other oil paintings. The artist utilized the interplaying of undefined coloring materials upon coloring these relieves and in the meantime preserving the folkloric spirits in the depths of his carried out paintings. Abd El Wahab Morsi passed previous experiences in the 1970s, greatly participated in the circulation of his art and fame. He carried out certain artworks printed by the silk screen on yellow paper to suggest its oldness. He colored these works with colors resembling the ancient Egyptian artist's palette and imposing rock color on the paintings ground and burned some of the paper edges to emphasize the importance of oldness and originality. |
| Adel Thabet |
| Egyptian new realism and the artist Abd El Wahab Morsi |
 Following up the artists' artworks of the Egyptian contemporary movement shows the development of their different movement, starting from the pioneers of the Egyptian contemporary art, who created by their chisels and brushes the art experiments with events needs and results according to life ways. Consequently their creativity has been marked with variability, anxiety and finally they resurrected the modern artistic rise from its counterpart of the ancient Egyptian civilization. The artists' generations are succeeding like the sea waves and Abd El Wahab Morsi is one of the fourth generation pioneers. Abd El Wahab Morsi affirms his self through his art, and he managed to receive his art originality from three sources: the heritage, environment and era. He is creative artist and his wall painting is characterized by old wall paintings character, i.e. the "fresco", but through another concept, relations based upon combination of engraving, and coloring on a piece of paper the smell of oldness emitted from it, to carry the viewer to very far time. Abd El Wahab Morsi consciously handled them and linked them with the geometric elements and lines, where the decoration is in a state of harmonization with the surface to increase its vitality and richness, i.e. the graphic art richness freed from its rules and academic codes. His long practices of painting art have helped him. His artworks are considered a mixture abstract expressionism in performance and surrealism in imagination, so he attracts the viewer at the first sight to strange world, within which he modifies his paintings lines, colors and exaggerates the twofold geometric feeling to reach its symbolic content, through his exploitation of his antiquities knowledge, ability, and colors control. So his artworks emit very expressive taste and uniqueness, as he presented through them new vision and that shows what marks Abd El Wahab Morsi approach in relation to artwork dynamics, treating colors through musical rhythms moving from sight to affection, so an emotional communication occurs between the viewer and the painting through the reflected feeling upon seeing. Accordingly Abd El Wahab Morsi recreated nature and heritage and preserving our artistic history, and he also realized through this difficult equation the reconciliation between the past and present. |
| Wagdi Habashi |
| In Abd El Wahab Morsi exhibition: complete reverence to the Egyptian Nationality |
Abd El Wahab Morsi is an artist from the Egyptian earth and sand. He resisted subordination and alienation. He absorbed the Egyptian sovereignty as a methodology, expression principal, self- expression, natural disposition and finally the whole Egypt: the earth and the people. He is marked with his special employment of the Egyptian originality, as he draws his inspirations from the heritage reality, subjected it to his self, so he endows it with uniqueness and continued that in his artworks, distinguished by their Egyptian flavor and originality. This voyage and artistic way of the artist Abd El Wahab Morsi are marked with the expression of the inside and depth of every Egyptian. Every viewer will stand at each of the paintings, as he discovers in them his Egyptian nationality, in respect of the composition, elements and colors' warmness including the red and green. So the viewer will not suffer alienation through the artistic way of Abd El Wahab Morsi, starting from 1956 war painting: the sufferings of our people, the miserable girl and its poor cat, and passing through several stages and techniques employment, accordingly his painted artworks are collected in institutions, museums and individuals in different world areas, as they are marked with Egyptian feelings and distinguished performance, despite their little numbers. After that he started engraving to produce much more artworks that enjoyed eminent positions and affirming the artist position as an Egyptian artistic facet. Abd El Wahab Morsi lived in Facous/Sharkeia governorate, and has been endowed with the original rural values, faithful handling and expression of land, people and relatives, consequently his own philosophy presented the artist's life voyage. That is reflected on the viewer' reaction, showing the artist's success, additionally the plastic art turned to be enlightening, awareness and appreciation approach in the hands of Abd El Wahab Morsi. Abd El Wahab Morsi is involved in continuous conversation with Egypt's elements, sand, mud and continues his development and attachment to his Egyptian origins. |
| Mohamed Selema- Al-Ahram newspaper |
| Egypt with all its historical stages in the past time and immemorial. Abd El Wahab Morsi and his works, which he has carried out through engraving and painting, almost reflect this wonderful and attractive mix with the past fragrance and heritage, despite the differences of his stages. You see in his paintings, drawings and colors: Egypt with its majestic history.. Either the ancient Egyptian or the Islamic. His imaginations plays with the letters, birds and animals forms before man, combined in one painting moves you in one second to live past and present in the same time, through an inherited bridge. Abd El Wahab Morsi's art reflects in the framework of art and it .historical periods- melting in his paintings melting pot- pure artistic thinking heritage. |
| Kamal Almalakh |
| Abd El Wahab Morsi's artworks |
| Abd El Wahab Morsi's artworks are considered epical distinction in our contemporary plastic movement for more than forty years. He draws his inspiration as a creative painter from the Egyptian art data that lived in his imagination, adopted it according to his own vision, self- approach and finally founded established academic values and principals, either in his color treatments, which show the musical aspect of the relations surfacing the painting or the firm and weaved artwork compositions, despite his concentration on the 2D, not the 3D, as his three dimensionality is illusive, which reveals his rich creativity and expressive ability through the aesthetic values, poetic feeling, rich and refined touches, additionally he has been influenced by the ancient Egyptian spirit. His creative artworks show that he managed to solve without contrivance the Egyptian locality equation, inspiring roots, preserving the vitality of his creative artworks, his coloring, compositional radiances and his ability of communicating the aesthetic feeling to the acceptor. |
| Kamal Algeweli |
There are many tributaries for belongings, all of them end in the great river.. Some artists utilize the topographic outlines as a façade reflecting the Egyptian environment exterior appearance, others utilizes the folkloric rituals as the speech language between the artist and the audience and others go farther as they fathom the depths of believes and psychological latencies and surfacing them, as they consider them the roots furnishing life with the its tasty sap. Abd ElWahab Morsi defined his belonging from the beginning, when his fingers following -up the pure refined lines on the temples walls and on the papyruses, during his work for the authority of antiquities registration, as he selected the way of his great grandfathers and resolute to adopt the hieroglyphic as his expression language, taking in his mind that there are certain characteristics imposed by the agricultural environment on the ancient Egyptian creativity, they include extreme simplicity and flatness, expressing the infinite extension of the land of the unset sun.
This artistic opinion is U turned in the modern era and the painting roughness, cracks and undulations, conflicting on the painting surface are considered now distinguished painterly value and paramount privilege that surpass the silky smoothness. Consequently judgment rashness must be avoided as the things nature must not be taken into account, but how they are utilized and the method of this utilization. The viewer of the artist Abd El Wahab Morsi exhibition immediately encounters the confidence, originality and glaring identity emitting from the plastic language, the artist utilizes as an expression tool. The hieroglyphic taste is underlying his motifs, as his long habituation of the ancient Egyptian heritage during his work for the antiquities authority has deeply influenced his affection. The ancient Egyptian elements deeply ingrained in him, are like seeds sown in fertile soil, which flourished and produced these creative artworks radiating the ancient Egyptian fragrance, that has arise, leaving its past and place, to live in the present, speaks its language and addressing the era affection. The artist has endeavored to revive the ancient Egyptian traditions, combining relief and colored painting protruding from his paintings by the sand pastes, fixed on the painting surfaces through sculpturing modeling and utilization of his motifs that accompanied him in his long art trip. So Abd El Wahab Morsi successfully managed to color the surface, without losing its desert nature and helping the embodiment process, free from domination or submission. It was a nice gesture from Abd El Wahab Morsi when he presented with his last experiments with sand pastes, other pure painting works, he carried out in 1970s, in addition to some distinguishing engraving artworks.. Reviewing these stages and different media shows how his chart is rising steadily in complete balance and how the deep- rooted artist develops without losing his personality and also witnessing evolving internal growth marked with its roots that provides him with life needs..
We cannot prevent the western thinking from "invading" our artists' minds, reflecting on their paintings, statues and creativity as a whole. We must abide from rejecting "fads", even if we actually capable of that, in sense that they are "social changes", some of them are turned to constants leading to civilized progress even if most of them – as shown recently – are frivolous overflowing our exhibition, supported by those in power and enjoying the economic potentials of encouragement and the executive authorities of sending delegations and missions abroad, in addition to having the keys of the temporary fame. Abd El Wahab Morsi is among the few painters, who rejected Euro-American subordination and supervision, coming over the Atlantic and Mediterranean, as his creativity roots are deeply penetrating the Egyptian soil, so he presented original innovated forms marked with the contemporary character, in relation to craftsmanship, tools, materials and the general human content. That was supported by the different aspects of the firmly established Islamic civilization surrounding his studio in "Kasr Almesafer khana"in Azhar district, and his work for the center of antiquities registration during the period: 1958 – 1976, as he reformulated the ancient Egyptian photographs, realizing their line, symbols and formation in the nature reality, between the temples columns and tombs walls.What above-mentioned reveals that he had drank from the heritage springs, enjoyed their sweetness, scented the time fragrance and finally his roaming spirit settled on the warm beach of the very far past. He revealed its secrets and added to it from his own spirit, which bring back to it a great part of its glory, splendor and charm that was clearly shown in the exhibition of his oil paintings and graphics in Frankfurt/Germany in the year 1981. Some critics called his artistic approach: "Morsism", derived from his name. In fact the classic heritage elements, Abd El Wahab Morsi utilized in his artwork, imposes local character on his creativity.. They are affiliated to certain place and time: the place is Egypt and the time is our era. Additionally Abd El Wahab Morsi enjoys marked approach, in relation to "craftsmanship and form" apart from content. He targeted expressing freedom in some paintings, the content of one of them, carried out in the year 1982, nearly disappeared behind the symbols cluster, technique dazzle and grey colors flowing from above. They are mixed with the brick color to form suitable background for high and sunken relief through harmonizing rhythm alternations, which can only viewed through bright side light, to reveal the painting different elements: the circle, boy head, fish, cock and stars. The symbols are the bases of Abd El Wahab Morsi creative formations, before his utilization of "wall materials" in the beginnings of 1970s, to point out to the relation between man, cosmic and mystics. He derived their meaning from his close contact with ancient Egyptian drawings, their philosophical signs and their magic effects, but he did not simulate their natural formation, and presenting them through illogical surrealist relations, for example there is a bow in the left symbolizing the life boat under wavy lines symbolizing the sky and all them are in illogical vertical positions, but they are uniformed with the general composition. Abd El Wahab Morsi is aiming at finding a way for linking the contemporary creative art with our ancient Egyptian heritage, based on wall painting: engraving and drawing. So he successfully moved the wall nature to the separated painting cloth and mixed engraving with colored drawing. Consequently his artworks are classified as high and sunken reliefs and lost their relation with the painting colored drawing, as it is considered 2D , despite the insistence of the art movement officials on mixing fine arts with applied arts in the art education exercises, under the crook and loose slogan: "the plastic art".
That is aiming at enabling the applied and educators officials to direct the fine arts movement. Apart from what above-mentioned the ancient Egyptian artist created his painting on the walls of certain place to carry certain messages, in a temple or tomb and the symbols have ritual function and magic meanings, but the high value of Abd El Wahab Morsi creativity is based upon the living energy and aesthetic distributions included in these symbols and heritage elements, in addition to their attractiveness , exquisite characters and the ability of holding the receptor feelings due to their obvious oriental flavor and original identity. So it not a mere chance that Abd El Wahab Morsi enjoys the high appreciation of the Egyptian, Arabic centers and attracting the European countries artistic audience's attention, upon viewing his interesting painting emitting the Egyptian identity. Abd El Wahab Morsi established his studio in the "Mesafer Khana Palace" in the end o f the 1960s, furnished with his ancient Egyptian art experiences and linked them with the Islamic Memluk art experiences presented in the "Mesafer Khana Palace" itself and "Wekalet Alghouri", in which there are other studios and Alazhar district as a whole. He started there the "artistic copying" marked with its age character and the form of the burned papers after restoration and the continuity of the symbols inspired form the Egyptian, Coptic, Islamic and folkloric motifs, but Abd El Wahab Morsi ably managed to change the colors and touches of each "copy" to differ it from the previous ones, except the basic design that occupies middle position between colored painting and printing. It may be that this innovative approach is underlying the artist fame and may by he adopted it to avoid abandoning his oil paintings, which witnessed the great demand of the art collectors, namely the "Mesafer Khana" is considered a sightseeing place for the foreign art collectors. As Abd El Wahab Morsi previously abandoned expressionism, he also exhausted his experiment inspired from the ancient Egyptian drawing style and adopted the symbolic abstractionism, utilizing the previously mentioned heritage motifs, as shown in the painting of the planet orbit, which he created after series of graphic, oil painting, high, and sunken relief. He carried out the said painting on cardboard: 90x115 cm, in the year 1978. Abd El Wahab Morsi was interested in space travels dominating the TV and radio news; consequently he created some paintings called "space works". They are not mere frivolous meager abstracts lacking the human content, but they expressed eloquently through true strong emotions his sophism reflections in the ability of the Almighty Creator, cosmic grandness and nature domination. He utilized the strange space colors, according to the descriptions of the astronauts and employed the geometric Arabic decorations and the color systems distributed between the different shades of blue and red to reveal the huge dynamic movement, so the viewer after some reflection feels that he navigates in the space, and taking in mind that these artworks are marked with its clear Egyptian oriental identity. Abd El Wahab Morsi practiced in the same time three creative approaches by different materials: oil drawing – copying or artistic printing – colored sculptural planes that reached higher degrees of mastering and charm. Abd El Wahab Morsi's mastering the different approach, enabled him to place the colored drawing art in the same place of the contemporary poetry and music and participating in what can be called the "the Egyptian new realism" combining form affiliation and human content. His radiant talent imposed strange character on his works, interesting and attractive.. Consequently he enjoyed refined position, admitted by the artistic foreign bodies.. Accordingly he is currently assuming the highest position in our artistic movement.