Name Salah Mur | ||
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Salah Elmur (Arabic: صلاح المر, born 1966 Khartoum, Sudan) is a contemporary artist living and working in Khartoum. Elmur's painting style can be defined as slightly random and abstract, but not to the point of incomprehensibility. His use of color favors bold tones in thick paint strokes complimented with occasional shades of lighter hues. "The colours in my paintings are very strong because of the sun in my country and also because of the people there, who love to wear colourful clothes", says Salah Elmur. The subjects express unreserved emotional capacities; although the paintings do not include significant events or action, each face appears to have a story behind it.
Elmur is a painter, filmmaker, photographer, and illustrator. His works can be found in public and private collections all over the world. His paintings have been exhibited in Egypt, the UAE, Sudan, Syria, Jordan, France, Washington D.C., Uganda, and Kenya among other locations. His work has even been shown in a group exhibition at the British National Museum in London, a rare honor for a contemporary artist from Sudan.
In Elmur's most recent exhibition in 2013, "Eyes Stream," he drew inspiration from the name of an ancient wall in Cairo, "Wall of Hungarian Eyes." He meditated on the label, and decided to explore the human eye in his most recent series of paintings. His 2011 series called "Circus" features strong colours, as well as Elmur's distinctive figurative yet abstract style. There is the brown horse with the bright-orange roller skates under his hooves or the man with his tongue sticking out ready to bite into a ripe slice of watermelon – a reference to the people who came to the circus with their picnics when he was a child growing up in Sudan.
Fruits are a preferred subject of Salah Elmur. They can be found again and again in his paintings, just like people and animals. His latest works from 2006 featured insects, fruits and people, as well as a series from 2007 titled Guards. Time and again, it is the bird in various forms and colours that he depicts in those paintings -‐ sitting on the head of a person or on an arm, rocking on a rope or flying high above the other images.
The exhibition at the residence of the European Commission in Cairo, organised and arranged by Stefania Angarano from Mashrabia Gallery in Cairo was Salah Elmur's third exhibition in the Egyptian capital. After closing its doors at the end of May, a collection of the paintings traveled to Washington DC, where they were shown at the African Cultural Centre for a month.
Using traditional elements in a contemporary way is what distinguishes El Mur's style, says Angarano. "His paintings are full of symbols and rituals but it is never clear what they really are – that makes them very mysterious and attractive."
As a filmmaker, Elmur directed and produced six short films, divided between documentary and fantasy. He won the Jury Prize (special acknowledgement) for his film "Heaven's Bird" at the International Short Film festival "Images that matter" in Ethiopia in 2010.
Salah also composes and illustrates children's books published in Arabic, French, Italian, and Spanish by Grandir Publishing and Syros. He has published the following titles: “ Chacodile” (Grandir, 2002), "Jameil et Jamila: Conte Baggara du Soudan" text by Patricia Musa (Grandir, 2003), "Diakhere, la Cadette: Contes de Mauritanie" text by Mamadou Sall (Lirabelle, 2006), “Sous Le Soleil” text by Badr Eddine Arodaky (Syros, 2007), “Une Famille d’Artiste” (Grandir, 2007), “Le Soudan” with Patricia Musa (Grandir, 2010), and “A Qui est cet Oeuf?” with Camille Pilet (Grandir, 2013).