FineArt Sector - Biographies - Mai Mustafa Mohammed Kamal Abdel-Azziz Refqi

Mai Refqy.. and Seizures of New Generation
Despite audience abstaining from following the fine art movement, especially that of the upper echelon the new generations insisted on improving their art production, staging exhibitions and introducing their own views. The way, which reflexes the Egyptians desire in enduring that sort of human enlightenment to integrate the artistic march that, accompanied the Egyptian renaissance for hundred years.

Ergo, fine arts still attract new talents, when the ninetieth epoch represents infinite number of novel anticipated artistes who enriched the Egyptian art movement. Among those new talents: artist Mayy Refqy, who studied painting and graduated at the Faculty of Fine Arts, 1998. She preferred to be freelance artist on being an instructor. Vigorously, she participated in many exhibitions, where she grasped attention as new face strongly broke into the world of creation. In contrary to her colleagues, she used her own unlikely style.
Mayy’s style remarked with applying the academic method on drawing, where she easily submits the stripes to her own use; tingeing with a set of hot colors connected in fine art formula. Whereas, she intelligibly depicts a dialogue between the flat surfaces and the incarnated formations as well as the void spaces and those of diversify ornamentation that selected its fraction to enrich and prevail a soft tinge of chanting on artwork.
Accordingly, she is on the right trace with steady steps on art movement, as she transported from the academic stage to the self-characteristic phase in her creative life.

Motivated with my keen to approach to the new generation, I discussed the young generation prime issues with artist Mayy Refqy. First of all, their relation with the past artistes of the Egyptian Contemporary Painting since the pioneers till now. Mayy said: since my childhood till now I got the chance to learn about the pioneer artists through my family’s library, where I aquatinted to Mahmoud Mukhtar, Seif Wanly and Tahya Haleem with her simple style and true expressions, as well as artist Enjy Aflatoon whom I admired her creations. Then she wished her artistic experience to be on the same path of the Egyptian art movement and not deviated on it. Accordingly, this notion could be absent at the young generation artists, whose artwork seemed to be sidetracked from the hereditary and authentic arts of the Islamic and Coptic eras. Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that interacting with heritage does not mean imitating it or using outdated styles, it means to taste and sense the aesthetics of the past to nourish our present. Unlike the western artists who obviously enriched their art from our legacy of Islamic and Coptic aesthetics, we forgot the rivulet priceless treasure between our hand, that represents a genuine profound of our culture.
We and the Western Art..
In question about, how much she attached to a European style and stereotypes she wants to achieve? Specially, her last trial that was totally affected with Gogan in setting the drawing characters and Mattes in depicting the Islamic ornaments, to create a cadenced music? Mayy said, though she looked to the western art as human experience that could be useful, she didn’t imitate it and never gasp after the new for just being new, but she pat after the value and affective. However, in that stage she still exploring her abilities in spontaneous free style, and didn’t want to stuck into a limited style.
Consequently, Mayy provokes serious thesis in art movement, as she submits her art to the selective not to imitation, the artist liberty that led him to ethereal horizons to give him the matured artistic character and fame. Imitation could destroy the artist’s distinctive character. Artist’s independence prevails uniqueness and individuality to his artwork and to the world of creation as well.
Alas, this simple thesis that rules the art creation, always neglected in estimating art value in exhibitions, where they only estimate the imitated stereotypes which they already believe in. They didn’t have the evaluating mediums that enable to know all genuine and innovative. They only believe that the young artist’s ability lies in producing a similar artwork to those stereotypes. Accordingly, that dilemma caused confusion and corruption to the spontaneous instinct of a young artist.
Cultural background:
Asking her about the other kinds of art such as cinema, music, literatures of poetry, novel, drama and short stories, she said that she had good relation with music as she played piano and dance ballet since she was kid in addition to a limited relation to literature and theater.
It seems that most of youth artists abstaining form the other kinds of arts, neglecting the common notion “all arts had the same bases”. So, they have to defeat this denounced view that prevailed in other archaic times, when they thought that fine artist is only an artisan or craftsman without any spiritual or lofty culture. Consequently, it is rare to find a fine artist who interacts with the other types of knowledge and culture. Fine artist believes only in his talent considering it enough to create valuable artworks, but this is not true. It is a fact that there are no values in superficial, dark souls, isolated from the other worlds of creation. Theoretically, artist should know the main aesthetics values of art as well as interacting with the pioneer art creators throughout history. It wouldn’t be cultural showing off, but it should be enriched human experience of all art production.

To follow European art that possessed the tip level of fine art allover the world, we should be positively creative, not just imitating its stereotypes. Fine artist shouldn’t deviate from the other artistic fields, he is an integrate part of art world. Hence, there were the innovation movements synchronized with all arts and societies. For instance, the impressionism school wasn’t for painting art only, but there were an impressionism music also; the surrealism school in literature and cinema side by side to fine arts.
Cultural climate:
How many times we noticed fresh talents with fineness sense that qualifying it to be a valuable icon in art life; then, unfortunately, this talent vanished for many reasons, all related to the inappropriate cultural climate. Fresh talent is the same as a new baby who needs care and feed with appropriate elements to guarantee his healthy growing up. So is art experiment that needs holding seminars, productive discussions to demonstrate the facts about art. Also, it needs to give a chance to issue serious theories that shed light on art and unveil its secrets. In addition, encouraging the fresh talents that really have genuine individual signs.
Though it seems impossible to achieve that in such current climate, where all the superficial elements prevail and dominate the cultural climate, we still insisted on provoking the young generation, who chose the fine arts to be his noble profession, to defeat those negative impacts and add a real Egyptian art creation to the creative human march.
Edited by: Sabry Mansour
Al-Hellal,2003
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Artists upon Siege..

Mayy’s Hymns
Debut of a new artist is real cultural event, while critics and media circus marathon to shed light on and follow his works even wagering on his future. This is not only in Egypt! On the first day of the new year, artist Mayy Refqy-who was born in Cairo, 1976, then graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo, 1998- staged her new solo show at Khan al-Maghraby art gallery. Such show which attracted the audience to a pure talent, where she technically applied her talent to produce a special case that likens lute humming. With miniature and compound ornamentation, you will transport to the essence of the Arabic and Persian manuscripts, and then you will discover that it was nothing but optical illusion. It represents contemporary aesthetic construction connected all the abstract optical relations transporting together rhythms of reality and heritage; preserving the oriental scent, harmonizing lines and colors with rational geometrical stripes and miniaturizing ornamentation.
She settles her tableau inside the still traditional mold, depending on the Arabic aesthetic, then mutinying at the same time. She depicts a live characters with realism style, then surrounds it with abstract ornamentation surfaces opposite to the painting methods. These contradicts seemed to be estrange, but in real, it is the beauty secret of Mayy Refqy art creations. It paved the way to all levels of audience, upon one condition that to know the different between public and elegant art; to be careful against being stereotyped, the matter that mandating concessive research, rehearsals and guided with other Arab and International experiments that tried to connect between all of these perplexes.
By Ezz-Edeen Naguib
Al-Hellal, February 2003.