The child inside the painter
MIDDLE EAST TIMES / 23-29 June
By Enaya Gad
Special to the Middle East Times
It is amazing how many of us know what we want when we are young without yet having any substantial knowledge of the world. In later life things become clouded, and nothing is as clear as when we were children.
But for the artist Adly Rizkallah, the childhood calling he received has stayed with him in its original clarity.
Rizkallah was born in Assiut and studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Zamalek. He went to France in 1971 on the assumption that he would continue his studies. But once he got there, he realized that his need to study further was not as compelling as his need to actually start painting.
Rizkallah began to support himself and his new wife by drawing cartoons while simultaneously trying to find his unique self in his own personal paintings. “There was needless experimental play with my colors and many meditative hours”, says Rizkallah. Then came his personal breakthrough. “I had just bought a new pack of watercolors and the colors started to dance and I found myself on my papers.”
Rizkallah came back to Cairo in 1981, he recalls the circumstances of his homecoming. “I returned to Cairo still truly wanting to become an Egyptian artist. Paris had offered him a lot. It completed my artistic background in addition to what Egypt had to offer me.”
Rizkallah decided to continue working as a full-time artist. “They did that in Paris, but it was suicide to do in Cairo… I had to stop smoking for two years because I had no money.”
In Cairo he continued to support himself the same way that he did in France, and progressed on to illustrating and writing children’s books. “I think I’m still a child,“ he says, “I still feel like one inside.”
Rizkallah never puts work in only one of his studios, “I’m too afraid,” he says. “If something should happen to them I would die.” Everyday he wakes up at seven in the morning and paints until four – to the accompaniment of music – and then he goes out into his garden.
Last month he had an exhibition in the Akhnaton Gallery in Zamalek, and his work certainly displays a duality in his nature of both the spiritual and the sensual. These two elements can and will continue to create controversy, especially when dealt with in the arts.
“Ten days have passed since the opening and people come and go looking at my work… Just recently I saw something new in one of my paintings. If only few of the people see and feel it too, that would be more than enough. They have just to look more carefully.” he said.
Rizkallah has two little girls, one of which is already expressing a strong interest in the arts. She has nevertheless told her father that she is afraid of choosing such a career because it totally possesses, and there is little time for anything else. “But I don’t influence my children,” he says, “after a while she’ll probably change her mind.”
“But I do teach them what I can, and they know that for me money is not a concern
– But art is eternal, with no limits.”
But for the artist Adly Rizkallah, the childhood calling he received has stayed with him in its original clarity.
Rizkallah was born in Assiut and studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Zamalek. He went to France in 1971 on the assumption that he would continue his studies. But once he got there, he realized that his need to study further was not as compelling as his need to actually start painting.
Rizkallah began to support himself and his new wife by drawing cartoons while simultaneously trying to find his unique self in his own personal paintings. “There was needless experimental play with my colors and many meditative hours”, says Rizkallah. Then came his personal breakthrough. “I had just bought a new pack of watercolors and the colors started to dance and I found myself on my papers.”
Rizkallah came back to Cairo in 1981, he recalls the circumstances of his homecoming. “I returned to Cairo still truly wanting to become an Egyptian artist. Paris had offered him a lot. It completed my artistic background in addition to what Egypt had to offer me.”
Rizkallah decided to continue working as a full-time artist. “They did that in Paris, but it was suicide to do in Cairo… I had to stop smoking for two years because I had no money.”
In Cairo he continued to support himself the same way that he did in France, and progressed on to illustrating and writing children’s books. “I think I’m still a child,“ he says, “I still feel like one inside.”
Rizkallah never puts work in only one of his studios, “I’m too afraid,” he says. “If something should happen to them I would die.” Everyday he wakes up at seven in the morning and paints until four – to the accompaniment of music – and then he goes out into his garden.
Last month he had an exhibition in the Akhnaton Gallery in Zamalek, and his work certainly displays a duality in his nature of both the spiritual and the sensual. These two elements can and will continue to create controversy, especially when dealt with in the arts.
“Ten days have passed since the opening and people come and go looking at my work… Just recently I saw something new in one of my paintings. If only few of the people see and feel it too, that would be more than enough. They have just to look more carefully.” he said.
Rizkallah has two little girls, one of which is already expressing a strong interest in the arts. She has nevertheless told her father that she is afraid of choosing such a career because it totally possesses, and there is little time for anything else. “But I don’t influence my children,” he says, “after a while she’ll probably change her mind.”
“But I do teach them what I can, and they know that for me money is not a concern
– But art is eternal, with no limits.”
