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拍品专文
Executed in 2009, Flamenco is a representative work from Ibrahim El-Salahi's homonymous titled series, an exceptional oeuvre of captivating paintings inspired by the artist's fascination for the dance and music he encountered during his visits to Andalusia. El-Salahi incorporates the Moorish architecture and the vibrant colours that he saw during his visits to Marbella, Toledo, Cordoba, Granada, and Malaga, while also exploring ways to translate the sounds and rhythms of dance into visual form.
He comments: ‘I first made small works in colour, to catch the impression left on me, especially of Alhambra, where we stayed in a hotel right in the palace itself. In Alhambra I noticed decorations on the walls that were the same as we used to do as children in the khalwa (Qur’anic school) when we decorated our slates with certain patterns after we had learned parts of the Qur’an. I liked the colour of the cardboard because it resembled the colour of the stone and brick at Alhambra. Then I branched into larger works in silhouette and linear treatment, several relying mostly on burnt sienna and black, which in my mind is reminiscent of the impact of Andalusia’.
The work has been exhibited in the show Ibrahim El-Salahi: A Visionary Modernist in 2012-2013 at the Sharjah Art Museum and later travelled to Katara Arts Center in Doha and Tate Modern in London.
Born in Sudan in 1930, El-Salahi is one of the most important living African artists and a key figure in the development of African Modernism today. After graduating from the Slade School in London, on his return to Sudan in 1957, he established a new visual vocabulary, which arose from his own pioneering integration of Sudanese, Islamic, African, Arab and Western artistic traditions. Tate Modern’s 2013 retrospective of El-Salahi’s work was historically the museum’s first exhibition dedicated to Africa Modernism. His work is included in the permanent collections of important international museums, such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; The National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC; The British Museum, London; Tate Modern, London; The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Newark Museum; Sharjah Art Foundation; The National Gallery, Berlin. He currently lives and works in Oxford, England.
He comments: ‘I first made small works in colour, to catch the impression left on me, especially of Alhambra, where we stayed in a hotel right in the palace itself. In Alhambra I noticed decorations on the walls that were the same as we used to do as children in the khalwa (Qur’anic school) when we decorated our slates with certain patterns after we had learned parts of the Qur’an. I liked the colour of the cardboard because it resembled the colour of the stone and brick at Alhambra. Then I branched into larger works in silhouette and linear treatment, several relying mostly on burnt sienna and black, which in my mind is reminiscent of the impact of Andalusia’.
The work has been exhibited in the show Ibrahim El-Salahi: A Visionary Modernist in 2012-2013 at the Sharjah Art Museum and later travelled to Katara Arts Center in Doha and Tate Modern in London.
Born in Sudan in 1930, El-Salahi is one of the most important living African artists and a key figure in the development of African Modernism today. After graduating from the Slade School in London, on his return to Sudan in 1957, he established a new visual vocabulary, which arose from his own pioneering integration of Sudanese, Islamic, African, Arab and Western artistic traditions. Tate Modern’s 2013 retrospective of El-Salahi’s work was historically the museum’s first exhibition dedicated to Africa Modernism. His work is included in the permanent collections of important international museums, such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; The National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC; The British Museum, London; Tate Modern, London; The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Newark Museum; Sharjah Art Foundation; The National Gallery, Berlin. He currently lives and works in Oxford, England.