Mohamed Abla – was born in Mansoura, in Northern Egypt, in 1953. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Alexandria in 1973 and 1978 embarked on a seven-year journey around Europe, where he visited museums in Spain, France, Belgium, and Germany, eventually studying art, sculpture, and graphics in Vienna and Zurich. In 2007 he founded the Fayoum Art Center, where he established the first caricature museum in the Middle East two years later. A multimedia artist, Abla uses paintings, sculptures, engravings, and installations to depict folklores and landscapes from his native country but also to address contemporary social and political themes. He often combines different techniques, incorporating lithography and collages to his paintings, defying all boundaries that confine art practices.
Concerned with developing the art scene in his country, Abla founded several cultural institutions, as the Fayoum Art Center, Egypt, space for artists to meet and collaborate. Also, he established a caricature museum in Fayoum.
Abla lives and works between Cairo and Fayoum, Egypt, and Walsrode, Germany.
(DALLOUL ART FOUNDATION
