Eclectica Contemporary Abu Dhabi Art Fair 2024

If Walls Could Talk: A Dialogue of Art and Time

by Ashraf Jamal

Through scarified golden surfaces and rich fabrication, the Cape Town-based Eclectica Gallery presents the Cairo-based Egyptian, Ibrahim Khatab, infuses the desert with letters. All zones of culture, place, and being, are built on the elimination of a terra incognita, the nothingness of the desert. Khatab is acutely aware of this. His vast murals scratched and daubed into and onto wood signal the data and detritus of urban living – the scrawled mutterings of the streets, the calligraphic dance of Arabic letters and words, the elliptical signage of global products, the interpenetration of worlds and cultures that inform his vision of Cairo. For while Khatab’s work is distinctively local – the trace and measure of his city – it speaks eloquently and sensuously of places the world over. As such, his artworks are runes – enigmatic and wondrous signs and symbols the meaning of which remain remote, as though scoured by a desert wind. Within Khatab’s scratched and scrawled murals there lie seductive riddles and sweet small comforts. In his distinctive use of materiality – embrace of matter – Khatab allows us to plumb these needs and yearnings. As such, their artworks are sacral – they are concerned with rites and symbols, hopes and fears, beliefs and their fragility.