On 21 November, the Italian Embassy and the Italian Cultural Institute in Cairo inaugurated the solo exhibition “Migration” by Egyptian-Italian artist Gamal Meleka at the Institute’s gallery, in the presence of Italian Ambassador Michele Quaroni. The vernissage was a great media success, as also highlighted by the presence of representatives from the Egyptian cultural scene and the editors of the country’s major newspapers, as well as Taghrid Hussein, president of the Nile TV channel.
The thirty works on display highlight the layering technique, which has made the artist known both in Egypt and in Italy. With it, the author manages to imprint the strong mark of his personality on the canvas while enhancing the colour palette.
As art critic Lucia Messina wrote, “Through his art, Gamal Meleka acts as a witness and storyteller, evoking suggestions of faces and places rich in history and describing the past and present of his motherland, i.e. Egypt, with the earth split by the force of the Sun. His paintings are so masterful that they strike the eye like sculptural bas-reliefs – an art that his ancestors, the Egyptians of the ancient Pharaonic dynasties, were masters at. Thanks also to this skill, he is often called upon to represent Egypt at major international events, as an ambassador of ancient and new Egyptian culture.”
