|
“Your glow is an eternity, hot and mystical,
dance of molecules, of elementals, at the point of transfiguration. ”
Hussein Shariffe
Hussein Shariffe, a Sudanese Poet, Painter and Filmmaker, was born in Omdurman, Sudan in 1934. A graduate of Victoria College, Alexandria, Shariffe further pursued his education in England, studying Modern History at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University and then Art at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. He then studied film writing/directing at the National Film School, UK.
Born to an elite family in Sudan, Shariffe devoted his life to his art despite the disappointment of many. His work portrays his multidimensional identity of both painting and filmmaking. To him painting was his first love. During the early 60’s and 70’s he tried to live in Sudan, as a painter, but found little appreciation from the Sudanese masses which he hoped to reach out and communicate with through his work. It was then that he realised that he would need to leave the Sudan to pursue his dream through the cinema. His work reflected his proud Sudanese and African heritage through the vivid use of colours, in spite of his Western education.
Hussein Shariffe lived away from his homeland, in Cairo for the last decade of his life. Although in exile, his heart and soul were in Sudan, inspiring him to create such work as “Diary in Exile” and his unfinished masterpiece “Letters from Abroad”.
Professional Experience
1964: Editor, The Morning News, AlAyam Newspaper, Sudan
1964-66: Lecturer, Art Faculty, The School of Fine Arts, Khartoum, Sudan
1965: Founder/Editor, “Twenty-One”, a literary and Arts periodical
1970-72: Head of Production Department, The State for Cinema, Sudan
1973-76: Head of Film Section, The Department of Culture, Ministry of Culture & Information, Sudan
1989-91: Lecturer, Art Faculty, The School of Fine Arts, Khartoum, Sudan
Filmography
1997 Dawood (editing stage)
Letters from Abroad (in preparation)
Al Wathiq (in preparation)
1993 Diary in Exile (documentary)
(premiered at the United Nations Human Rights Conference, Vienna, 1993)
1985 Not the Waters of the Moon (documentary for UNICEF)
1979 *Tigers are Better Looking (fiction)
(shown at London Film Festival, 1979
Auberhousen Festival, Germany, 1980,
Tour Festival, France, 1980 – Special commendation)
1975 *Dislocation of Amber (documentary, drama),
was shown at Grenoble Festival, France, 1976
FESTAC, Lagos, Nigeria, 1976,
Edinburgh Festival, Scotland, 1978,
African Arts Festival, Furt, Germany, 1996,
Selected for Mannheim Festival, Germany, 1980
1973 The Throwing of Fire (documentary)
* Both films shown at Fribourg International Film Festival – Panorama of Arab Cinema, Switzerland, 2000
Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
1998: Al Staadt Gallery, Nurnberg, Germany
1997: Espace Gallery, Cairo Egypt
1996: Furt Art Centre, Furt, Germany
1996: Ewart Gallery, The American University in Cairo, sponsored by the Department of Performing and Visual Arts, Cairo, Egypt
1994: Opera House Gallery, Cairo, Egypt
1993: Cairo Atelier, Cairo, Egypt
1993: Al-Shomou Arts Gallery, Cairo, Egypt
1991: The Artists Syndicate Gallery, Cairo, Egypt
1988: The Soviet Cultural Centre, Khartoum, Sudan
1971: Gallery One, Beirut, Lebanon
1969: The British Council, Khartoum, Sudan
1965: The British Council, Khartoum, Sudan
1963: Gallery One, London, United Kingdom
1962: Gallery One, London, United Kingdom
1960: Gallery One, London, United Kingdom
Group Exhibitions
2003: Picasso Gallery, Cairo, Egypt
1998: Orlando Museum of Art, Florida, United States of America
1996: “Miniatures Exhibition”, Espace Gallery, Cairo, Egypt
1995: Balladna Gallery, Amman, Jordan
1992: “Four Sudanese Artists”, The British Council, Cairo, Egypt
1987: The Islamic Centre, London, United Kingdom
1986: “Arab Contemporary Art”, Pall Mall Galleries, London, United Kingdom
1965: The 9th Biennale of Sao Paolo, Brazil
1963: The Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford, United Kingdom
1963: The John Moore Biennale, The Walker Gallery, Liverpool, United Kingdom (Awarded First Prize for painting – junior section)
Professional Affiliations
The Sudanese Film Makers Union
The African Federation of Film Makers
The Association of Cinematography and Television Technicians (ACTT), United Kingdom
The British Guild of Film Directors
The National Film School of Britain (Associate Member)
Collaborations
1985: The World, editor (part of Channel Four TV Series – The Arabs)
1981: The Southeast Nuba, script and production (part of the BBC series Worlds Apart)
“It's always been difficult to know where to place Hussein Shariffe. He is perhaps Sudan's foremost abstract painter, a pioneer at any rate. Artistically, though, he casts his net a lot wider. He is also a poet and filmmaker.”
Gamal Nkrumah, Al-Ahram Weekly August 2003
“The frequently reworked surfaces of the work of Hussein Shariffe suggest ongoing metamorphosis where colours and form emerge; resolve themselves, but always teeter on the brink of dissolution. The balance is an extremely fine one and mirrors the artists own method of working on several pictures at a tim. He continually adds and develops making an art of process and development.”
Alan Smart
“One could have predicted the kind of film that Hussein would create. His oil and acrylic canvases are splashed in colour and are highly abstract In fact, colour is everything: subject, theme, technique, mood – everything.”
Sondra Hale on the making of the “Dislocation of Amber”
“I like it, but you have seen things that are not there”.
Jean Rhys commenting on the adaptation of her story “Tigers are Better Looking”.
"I am a painter. Each work of art is different. I paint essentially for myself. I see myself essentially as a painter, but I also come to life as a film director."
Hussein Shariffe
|
