Chant Avedissian

Egyptian-Armenian artist Chant Avedissian - who refined his techniques in Western art schools and whose inspiration is fuelled by the pantheon of Egypt's modern Golden Age - deftly explores the boundaries between 'high' and 'low' art; politics and pop; the ephemeral and the enduring; and Egypt and the rest of the world. Avedissian's subject is images themselves - mostly appropriated from the covers of Egyptian magazines from the era between King Farouk's early days and President Nasser's death, when Egypt was pursuing the ideal of modernity. The iconic figures in Avedissian's canvases include legendary singers Om Kulthoum and Asmahan; screen sirens Shadia and Hind Rostom; heart-throbs Farid al-Atrash and Abdel Halim Hafez; and once-adored statesmen like Gamal Abdel Nasser. His voracious appetite for these bygone days, and his unerring synthesis of the themes and iconography of Egypt and the Arab world in the 1950s and 1960s, also takes in mothers, sportsmen and women, soldiers, films, hieroglyphics, rural life and advertising.