A strange dream-like world that one cannot fully comprehend or explain appears sometimes like a cinematic scene from one of those movies which transports us to a virtual world that is not confined to the laws of physics, a world which engages with our senses and liberates our imaginations, and at other times appears like the mathematical interlocking shapes created by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher in his “Metamorphosis” series.
In Nazir’s world there are no rules: the fish fly, the horses float and the boats sail into a sky of stars and galaxies while his figures recline carelessly as they softly caress animals, everything weightless and liberated from gravity.
What attracts one’s attention is that the surface of his paintings is covered almost completely by his elements, large and small, and if there are any gaps they are like those in a lace design without which one would not appreciate the beauty of the whole.
He arranges his elements with the craftsmanship of a master designer to make it easy for the eye to navigate through the painting, and he achieves this through giving weight to his main subject both in size and color value; this gives his paintings a unique sense of illumination that makes them glow with inner light.
Tanbouli’s use of colors is very economic; black dominates his palette as if he painted primarily in black and white then added shades of blue, green, violet and yellow to highlight the subjects. This approach underlines his primary interest in composition which is very apparent in his ink drawings; these show his command of composition and draftsmanship and his understanding of the duality of light and darkness.
Tanbouli’s magical world reminds us of our childhood dreams where imagination soared without rules, a world without conflicts or pain, a world where innocent joy was all what we wished for.
Samir Fouad
October 2023
About the Artist
Nazir Tanboli was born in Alexandria in 1971, he started drawing and painting at the tender age of three and has never stopped since. He studied art and design at Alexandria University between 1989 and 1994 and worked as a painter, muralist, illustrator, and graphic designer before moving to the UK in 2002, where he has lived since.
In 2010, he was awarded the MFA from Camberwell College of Arts, the University of the Arts London, where he studied book art and printmaking. He was awarded, by the same university, the Creative Enterprise Award 2012 for founding and managing the artist-run space Studio 75-London
Tabouli’s work is narrative, biographical, communicative, and often humorous. His characters and settings are a dreamlike rendering of all the people he knows and all the places he has visited, but his works frequently contain many global themes and symbols, making them both non-culturally specific and widely appealing
