Abdel Zaher’s semi-naïve and abundantly authentic expressionist paintings, predominantly explore Egypt’s ubiquitous cultural markers and traditions, especially where they exist in their most unadulterated and exemplary form, the country’s bountiful rural communities.
Omar Abdel Zaher was born in Cairo in 1966. He completed his postgraduate in 1994 and master’s degree from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University, in graphic and print design in 2000 in which he dedicated his studies to investigating the impact of primitive art forms on the Egyptian art of engraving. Abdel Zaher obtained a doctorate in 2006 in art philosophy from his alma mater, with his thesis on a comparative study between the impact of cultural heritage in Egypt and Iraq on contemporary art in the two countries. He also received formal art education with a two-year diploma in oil painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Minya University, and has been a regular fixture in the domestic contemporary art scene ever since.
Abdel Zaher has supplemented his career as an artist with a teaching role in landscape drawing, engraving, and in the basics of design printing technology from 2007 to 2014 at the Faculty of Fine Arts, South Valley University in his native Luxor. Abdel Zaher has been designated as a chief specialist with the rank of director general by the Ministry of Culture for his role in the general administration of national and international exhibitions. Formerly he was the undersecretary of the general administration of technical services for museums and exhibitions, and was director of the Egyptian Renaissance Hall in 2006. Prior to that he worked as a graphic designer at the Ministry of Culture from 1995, and for the magazine ‘Aujourd’hui l’Egypte’ (Egypt Today) from 1992 to 1994. Abdel Zaher has featured in a variety of collective exhibitions including the Cairo Youth Salon (Salon El Shabab) for nine consecutive years.
Abdel Zaher’s semi-naïve and abundantly authentic expressionist paintings, predominantly explore Egypt’s ubiquitous cultural markers and traditions, especially where they exist in their most unadulterated and exemplary form, the country’s bountiful rural communities. Abdel Zaher captures the infectious joie de vivre of Egypt’s countryside folk, depicting with the most expressive and authentic zeal their daily lives and routines. It is unmistakable how the carefree and jubilant nature of his subjects are reflected in the artist’s compositional style. Abdel Zaher’s palette is unashamedly natural in generally subdued earthen tones one would expect to see in such settings, however he punctuates these organic hues with bold and powerful ones like scarlet, aquamarine and radiant yellow gold, that although appearing spontaneous, are unobtrusive and compatible. He employs an emphatic type of block color segmentation, giving the scenes he paints a more vivid prominence in our mind’s eye.