Salama Salama

I was born in 1963 in Alexandria. A city on the Mediterranean Sea, the blue sky, the sand that keeps changing its color, the distance over the horizon, the muezzin's call to prayer, the serenity that draws warmth from the sun, the sultry air, a reminder of improvised children games, Paper kites that sail through the air, but never higher than the dreams of my childhood. Memories of happy days accompany me.

The painting started for me on the beach, on the asphalt roads, on the walls. So painting became my favorite pastime, it was fertile soil for the dreams of my childhood. The spirit of the inventor was still unrestrained, unencumbered by specifications and clichés. As I grew older, the pharaohs' spirit rose from the depths of time to play with my dreams. Traces of ancient cultures dug into my paintings and drawings. In high school, the art teacher suggested that I study art, and I followed the advice. At the art academy I experienced a great disappointment; The painting was now directed in orderly ways, and the dreams were trained. After graduation, I left Egypt and went to Europe. In 1986, I arrived in Germany, and a new, strange life began for me, and with it a new art - an art of sincerity, accompanied by yearning and loneliness. I traveled to many European cities, to Berlin, Paris and Rome, to Amsterdam and Andalusia, visiting famous museums and galleries. For a long time I painted pictures and portraits on the street. In 1993, I began studying graphics in Hamburg. I learned what makes a good artist: talent, diligence and intellect, and I tried to develop in that direction. But these things are not the goal alone. What is art? In the beginning there was a spiritual dimension in art. The oldest art forms found were for religious purposes, such as cave painting and cult objects. I try to get that dimension in my pictures, because this aspect plays an important role for me.

to find in art an opportunity for spiritual progress or a benefit, as in architecture, as well as to avoid provocation and even futility. A few years ago I sank into loneliness and strangeness and turned in an empty circle like a dog that has no toys and tries in vain to bite into its own tail. For me, visual art is an illusion or an image of the deep inner state.

Our way ends in the return to the beginning, to our origin