Egyptian artist Hamed Ewais, who dedicated much of his career to depicting the plight of his country’s working class, graduated from Cairo’s School of Fine Arts in 1944 and continued his studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid between 1967 and 1969. In The Protector of Life (1967–1968), Ewais paints an oversized soldier looming protectively over a group of Egyptian civilians engaged in a variety of daily activities – a wedding, a mother nursing, children riding bikes, a scientist performing an experiment, and a couple lovingly embracing. Painted in the crippling aftermath of the 1967 Arab– Israeli War, The Protector of Life offers an image of strength but also caution: the soldier securely holds his rifle in one hand, whereas his other tenderly shields and protects the people going about their daily lives. Beyond the cradle of the soldier’s enlarged hand, to the right, lies a deserted landscape and a barren tree, suggestive of Egypt’s loss of the Sinai Peninsula during the 1967 War. In the distance are depicted a plantation, a village, a factory, and a group of workers.
This is the first time the work of Hamed Ewais is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Suheyla Takesh
