Text: Natalia Remmer A SAID OF SAUDI ARABIA AHMAD MATER - ONE OF THE MOST KNOWN AND TALENTED MODERN PHOTO-ARTISTS OF THE ARAB WORLD AND THE CONSTANT GUEST OF THE LARGEST INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITIONS AND BENEFITS.
The focus of his attention is the processes of transformation of the Islamic world and, to no lesser extent, the main center of attraction - the holy city of Mecca.
The son of a Saudi army soldier and a staff doctor at the central hospital in the small city of Abha, Ahmad Mater, is actively practicing in his free time in such genres as photography, calligraphy, painting, installations and video. His task is to study the aesthetics of Islamic culture in the era of consumption, globalization and general dramatic changes. “My works are an interpretation of what I feel at a particular moment in time, this is the result of my observations and internal conversations with myself,” the artist says.
A series of documentary photographs entitled “Faran Desert” on the phenomenal transformation of the heart of the Islamic world - the holy Mecca - went around many major art shows and was a resounding success. In these photographs are reflected the scars of civilization that people leave on earth with a history of several thousand years. To satisfy the growing flow of pilgrims, the city is rapidly being built up with massive new buildings, burying the old quarters under it. So a living city from the time of Abraham is gradually turning into a 21st century megalopolis shining with lights. What are the true motives of urbanization, how painful are these cosmopolitan processes - you begin to think about all this, peering into the spaces of the stone jungle.
Another look in the direction of the Reserved Mosque is the installation “Magnetism”: metal crumbs form a vortex around the center of attraction. Thus, the author reproduces in a minimalist manner the complex ritual of the hajj performed by pilgrims for 1350 years. The black rectangular magnet is a kind of Kaaba, and the imaginary movement of particles is a kind of tawaf - a ritual tour of the "Holy House" during the religious ceremony. Dynamism, gravity and harmonious confrontation, the space of a square and a circle - on a black and white background, where there are no halftones, doubts and nothing more.
