Since last summer, while the majority of us languished in corona anxiety, Tanbouli sealed himself in the studio with a lot of large blank canvases and began to imagine his new collection. As the seasons passed and the warm autumn turned into cool, clear Egyptian winter, the collection of pictures grew, and the painter’s visions ripened into this show, Dawn of a New Day.
Pharaonic influences on display at Egypt art show | Daily Mail 15:13, 29/10/2017
"Paintings by top Egyptian artists shared wall space with hieroglyphs and Pharaonic relics at Cairo's Egyptian Museum this week in an exhibition highlighting ancient influences on contemporary art.
Artists, intellectuals and ambassadors from around the world attended the Saturday night opening of "A night with Art at the Egyptian Museum", organised by the private Art D'Egypte organisation.
The exhibition, at the museum on Cairo's iconic Tahrir square, will be open to the public until Tuesday.
"We wanted to highlight the link between contemporary art and ancient Egyptian Pharaonic art," Art D'Egypte founder Nadine Abdel Ghaffar told AFP." PDF
Interview in CairoScene "While street art has become the the medium du jour here in Egypt, one Alexandrian has taken his talent across the world. We chat with the award-winning Nazir Tanbouli about creating the biggest mural London has seen and the problem with Egyptian art."
"On our walk, Nazir reserved his fondest affection for a painting in ink on concrete, a dynamic medium which permitted no error or correction and produced an absorbency of line not unlike ink on paper. He stood next to the wall, almost caressing it."
"Spend a few minutes with Tanbouli and you will find that there is a level of excitement, passion and joy in his voice and demeanour when he discusses this project."
"Tanbouli’s monsters, with their gangly arms reaching across the walkways and balconies of the flats, were an instant hit."
Celia Topping, "Monster Mash" in Brown Book: An urban guide to the middle east
"He states totem poles as one of his key influences. 'You make them, and leave them; you don’t own them and you don’t sell them. I see my function as an artist to create something beautiful for the local community and environment; unfortunately, this concept doesn’t really exist in today’s art world, it’s too materialistic.' "
"Subverting traditional expectations, surprising reversals take place: and, in the arms of a woman, we watch the fearsome-looking crocodile wrestled into a puppy-dog bundle of squealing vulnerability. Tanbouli invites us to witness the pangs of becoming animal: a voyage into the underworld of self that mirrors the creative process."
"I do what I do every day for the last 30 + years. I draw every day. Just the chances are different, the places are different, the projects that my drawings might be involved in change, but the only things that does not change is that every day I sit at the table and draw."
"This vase is my answer to all those who might accuse me of “copying Picasso.” Ilove Picasso, but this style comes naturally to me. You could label any orther artist a Picasso-wannabe, but when it comes to Egyptian artists, we are merely revisiting ourcultural heritage – which Picasso obviously studied – when creating similar objects."
Nazir Tanbouli: Constructed Mythologies (Milton Keynes Contemporary) 2008
by Judith Palmer (Author), thecentre:mk (Author)
ISBN-10: 0955773733
ISBN-13: 978-0955773730