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ART OUT OF SUDAN
Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery
Winnipeg, Canada
January 5-March 3, 2001
In the wake of renewed interest in contemporary African art, the Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery in Winnipeg mounted "Art out of Sudan," which explored the diversity of Sudanese culture primarily through the work of Sudanese artist Ahmed El Sharif. Organized by curator Ray Dirks, the exhibition displayed more than thirty-five mixed-media works which link the divergent philosophies of Islamic and African traditional aesthetics. The winner of the 2000 Premier Prix award from the Salon des Arts Plastiques in Paris, El Sharif continues the rich cultural synthesis that began with the Khartoum School and its leading artists, Ibrahim El Salahi and Ahmed Shibrain. The Khartoum School created and defined a Sudanese aesthetic that embraced Islamic, Nubian, African, and Western influences. Since 1995, El Sharif and other young artists from Sudan have risen to prominence in the artistic communities of Africa, Europe, and beyond, exhibiting in Madrid, Paris, Cologne, New York, and Toronto.
The colors of the Sudanese landscape dominate El Sharif's palette. For him, the red earth, the yellow sun and sand, and the blue of the Nile and the celestial sky of Islam are continual sources of inspiration. Motifs of ancient Nubian culture-such as the zigzag, signifying...