Ahmed Le Si
This project is an attempt to merge old and new memories in a satiric manner. Interested in modern art, especially Pop Art, social issues and the daily life of Egypt, in his ongoing body of work artist Ahmed El leithy combines painting with collage to fuse images of the past and thus evoke the value of souvenirs. The artist revisits an unknown the past of unknown people and, as he seeks to seize the ephemeral nature of memories, he brings back his own narrative. The memory of others mix with ours and with those we met briefly and shared moments with in the past, reflecting at times a short-term at others a long-lasting impact on us. The open and ambiguous images that, consciously or unconsciously, take shape in the artist’s personal memory, come back to us in the form of the most unusual portraits of quirky men and children, which present animal features protruding from their heads and noses. The artist creates dream-like scenarios where figures are ironically deformed and, through his playful streak, are turned into freakish characters. The grimace on an old man’s face, which jars with the colourful flowers growing out of his head, and a horn-like sea shell stuck on the forehead of a severe man arouse laughter. As another man pulls out a rainbow-like tongue to the viewers, a curled up baby is turned into a panting puppy. Ahmed El leithy humorously reconstructs distorted overlapping memories to allude to the recorded memories that the new generations store temporarily through new technologies, such as Snapchat.
Visual artist Ahmed Le Si was born in 1995. He participated in many exhibitions and art workshops, such as the Young artists exhibition in the Palace of Arts, Cairo Opera House (2014-2015), the Artist Mohamed Abla competition (2014-2016), and the Naima Yanzef exhibition, a result of a collage workshop presented by artist Hani Rashed. His first exhibition abroad was held at the Super Market Exhibition in Stockholm, Sweden (2015). His works were acquired by several prominent artists, such as Adel el Siwi and Hamdy Reda, as well as singer Ameer Eid. Moreover, he received two awards for his work at the Mohamed Abla competition. |
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