Nūn Art Gallery • Luxor, Egypt • Artist Abdullah Ali Butler

Nūn Art Gallery • Artists • Abdullah Ali Butler

Nūn Art Gallery is pleased to introduce to you ... :

Abdullah Ali Butler (Mark Butler)

Abdullah Ali Butler in front of two of his artworks

Abdullah Ali Butler came to Egypt for the first time in April 1985 and immediately fell in love with Luxor. From then on, he came several times a year. In 1995, he moved to the west bank in Luxor, where he lived until the end of 2000, and became a keen amateur Egyptologist. About the same time, he developed an interest in art. Then he moved to Cairo, staying there until the beginning of 2007 when he moved to Alexandria and then in 2016 he moved back to Cairo.

For Abdullah painting is a commitment. It's not just something one does periodically but a daily discipline. His view is the "singularity of all things". He says:

"A painting is a record of thousands of moments, the decisions made from the very first mark to the very last, each intersecting interacting with the previous moment to create the future now.
When we create we are the closest we can be to understanding creation and yet it’s a poor understanding at best, when we reach out to the infinite, the infinite reaches towards Man, it is through us that God perceives its own existence.
Though beauty itself is a worthy aspiration art should be more than mere decoration. Art is the elevation of humanity above the mundane. Living life itself can be - should be - an art, and Art itself should touch the divinity not only in man but in all things, enshrining a momentary search for the unity of the singularity of its discernment."

Works at Nūn Art Gallery:

Exhibited at Abdullah Ali Butler's Exhibition "In the Picture"
at Nūn Art Gallery in December 2021 / January 2022


Click to enlarge Beginnings Acrylic on Canvas 100 x 150 cm 14,300 EGP	Click to enlarge Interaction Acrylic on Canvas 150 x 135 cm 17,200 EPG	Click to enlarge The Aztec Shaman Acrylic on Canvas 100 x 150 cm 14,300 EGP

Click to enlarge The Globe Acrylic on Canvas 120 x 120 cm 11,500 EGP	Click to enlarge Reciting Acrylic on Canvas 120 x 120 cm 11,500 EGP	Click to enlarge Blue Acrylic on Canvas 120 x 120 cm 11,500 EGP

Click to enlarge The Blind Geisha Acrylic on Canvas 100 x 150 cm 14,300 EGP	Click to enlarge Intimidations of Mortality Acrylic on Canvas 120 x 120 cm, 11,500 EGP	Click to enlarge The Role of the Dragon Acrylic on Canvas 120 x 120 cm 11,500 EGP
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Click to enlarge The Enemies of Egypt Acrylic on Canvas 100 x 150 cm 14,300 EGP	Click to enlarge The Harp Acrylic on Canvas 120 x 120 cm 11,500 EGP	Click to enlarge The Sphinx Stelae Acrylic on Canvas 100 x 150 cm 14,300 EGP

Click to enlarge The Hidden One Acrylic on Canvas 120 x 120 cm 11,500 EGP	Click to enlarge Artemis Acrylic on Canvas 120 x 120 cm 11,500 EGP	Click to enlarge Wings Acrylic on Canvas 100 x 150 cm 14,300 EGP

Click to enlarge Benu Bird Acrylic on Canvas 97 x 148 cm SOLD	Click to enlarge Establishing of Ma'at Acrylic on Canvas 100 x 150 cm 14,300 EGP	Click to enlarge The Green Lady Acrylic on Canvas 100 x 150 cm SOLD
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Click to enlarge Moments Acrylic on Canvas 120 x 120 cm 11,500 EPG	Click to enlarge Veils Acrylic on Canvas 120 x 120 cm SOLD	Click to enlarge Contemplation Acrylic on Canvas 100 x 150 cm 14,300 EGP

Click to enlarge It's Past Acrylic on Canvas 120 x 120 cm 11,500 EPG	Click to enlarge Winged Scarab Acrylic on Canvas 120 x 120 cm 11,500 EPG
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Series "My Tomb Paintings - From the Book of the Dead"

Click to enlarge Night & Day Acrylic on Canvas 45 x 140 cm 5,000 EPG	Click to enlarge Transformation to Benu Bird Acrylic on Canvas 45 x 140 cm, 5,000 EPG	Click to enlarge Repulsing the Slaughter of Amenta Acrylic on Canvas 45 x 140 cm, 5,000 EPG

Click to enlarge Given a Heart Acrylic on Canvas 45 x 140 cm 5,000 EPG	Click to enlarge Breathing the Air in Amenta Acrylic on Canvas 45 x 140 cm, 5,000 EPG	Click to enlarge Transforming into a Lotus Acrylic on Canvas 45 x 140 cm, 5,000 EPG

Click to enlarge Chapter of the Ushabtis Acrylic on Canvas 45 x 140 cm 5,000 EPG	Click to enlarge Given My Name Acrylic on Canvas 45 x 140 cm SOLD	Click to enlarge Weighing the Heart Acrylic on Canvas 151 x 135 cm 17,200 EPG

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Abdullah about His Tomb Paintings:

Breathing the Air in Amenta:
"In the space of the parted lover's stand I, alike the column of Osiris, of which I am. Above Nuit arches, the starry vault heavens sent. Beneath the black earth that begets, of Geb the fecund, the matter in space in space, the voice in the silence. In the void between, Shu, of which and in which, all things are formed. I come forth from the darkness. In the space between nothing and all things is born a new day in eternity. In an eternal moment I breathe the air, full sweet and fragrant, the first breath forever mine."

Given My Name:
"In the vast emptiness was said a word, a collection of sounds and suddenly, as I sat in the darkness, nay was even part of that nothing, the sound flared like a bright light. It's shining reverberation woke me. I became separated from the nothingness for I had once again come in to being, for the shining sound was my name its reverberation was the quickening of my heart that had laid too long silent. My memories returned enfleshed, no longer memories of what was. My love extended a hand to enfold mine, beautiful once more. Children, who'd long flowed the nest smiled up, the side lock of youth still unshorn. Together 'I' will traverse the wastes to Amenta."

Exhibited at the Nūn Art Gallery "Couples" Exhibition
in March/April 2021

Click to enlarge

Concealed by Offering
Acrylic on Canvas
150 x 100 cm
SOLD

"It's just about moving paint in a direction, every direction and it becomes something else. The transformation, marks and lines converge, add up, are subtracted and something appears, something different from either the cloth of the canvas or the medium of the colours, that's the true magic of Art. A leaping lion, which in reality is just an intertwining of white and black." - Abdullah Ali Butler

Other Works by Abdullah Ali Butler available at Nūn Art Gallery:


Click to enlarge The Vigilant Harlequin Acrylic on Canvas 120 x 120 cm 14,300 EGP	Click to enlarge The Eternal Dancer Acrylic on Canvas 120 x 120 cm 14,300 EGP	Click to enlarge The Bridge Acrylic on Canvas 80 x 120 cm 14,300 EGP

Click to enlarge The Shining Acrylic on Canvas 60 x 80 cm SOLD	Click to enlarge Aztec Maiden Acrylic on Canvas 60 x 80 cm 5,800 EGP

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Abdullah about these works:

The Vigilant Harlequin:
"Like the saints of old, she stands in the arid waste. The disk eternal radiates her soul shining, a beacon in the emptiness. Faceless for you can never know her. She can not speak to you of futility or of hope for she knows neither. She is the certainty."

The Eternal Dancer:
"There is a moment in time, it is ever-present. The conclusion of everything, every single choice, word, deed has led to this point, this exact moment. It evolves into yet another. This is the Dance Eternal, we are each part of it. She is surrounded by disks or coins, all shining and golden, to be grasped and gathered, but the shining horde is often fool's gold, deceptively shining yet worthless. Like the myriad of decisions and choices we made and make. The dance will pass the years gleefully, playfully yet do we join the dance willingly or trudge through the steps disapprovingly, disappointed that all that shines is not gold, they can not learn that the wealth is in the joy of the dance itself in which sometimes the fool's gold is worth so much more."

The Bridge:
"She is blue, like the sky, like the water. She is the Mother, Eternal. She is veiled but lightly, gossamer clad. Jewels man-made seek to enhance that beauty which cannot be decorated except with that of wrought by devotion. She holds the circle of life, the seed of the hope of a future which is also the bridge over which millions of souls have passed."

Aztec Maiden:
"Unspoken except in speech. Unseen, but by eyes that have seen the words and heard the colours singing of past images that record the greatness that once was. In time will I become unknown but yet still part of the ever changing present. A moment in time never again touched but always yearning to be."

The Shining:
"Strange creatures are familiar. Savanna stretched measured by the barefoot nomads. Home is before and behind, to the left and right. Home is the rock and trees, scrub and forest. For it is all one, home. The sun shines a myriad days dawns each heralding the journey home till the day dawns in which the light shines upon me and home has become all things eternal."

Other Works by Abdullah Ali Butler available at Nūn Art Gallery:

Abdullah Ali Butler is fascinated by the Japanese art of Kintsugi (or kintsukuroi = golden repair), which is repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, embracing in that way the flawed or imperfect and reviving it. Abdullah "translated" this three-dimensional technique into striking two-dimensional paintings.


Click to enlarge Kintsugi I: Geisha Acrylic Paint on Canvas 60 x 80 cm SOLD	Click to enlarge Kintsugi II: Memories of Hannah Acrylic Paint on Panel 60 x 80 cm 5,800 EGP	Click to enlarge Kintsugi III: Pensive Dancer Acrylic Paint on Panel 50 x 70 cm 4,700 EGP

Click to enlarge Kintsugi IV: Leigh Acrylic Paint on Board 40 x 60 cm SOLD	Click to enlarge Kintsugi V: Waiting Acrylic Paint on Panel 60 x 80 cm 5,800 EGP	Click to enlarge Kintsugi VI: The Cherry Blossom Acrylic Paint on Board 40 x 60 cm SOLD

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"I find an empty canvas exciting, a painting is a mass of decisions and moments, each captured and in turn capturing those decisions in an image, a mirror of time and motivation. To me Art is not decoration it's a statement" - Abdullah Ali Butler

Videos:

From 11 until 21 December 2021, Abdullah Ali Butler painted a fully canvas-covered room of the Nūn Art Gallery - which means 45 square metres! - that can only be entered by a slit. See here the progress of Abdullah's painting during this unique art event. The installation was part of the exhibition "In the Picture".

Interview with Abdullah Ali Butler and art lover Jayne Kenney during his visit at Nūn Art Gallery on 11 Feb 2021:

Education and Work Experience:

1987-1989 BTech Art & Design Diploma, Hastings College of Arts and
Technology England
1990-1994 HN Fine Art Diploma, Hastings College of Arts and Technology
England
1995-1997 Luxor Egypt: Research on ancient Egyptian painting materials and
techniques and reconstruction and preservation of antiquities
1997-1998 Luxor, Egypt: Desert Dream Developments
Designing and constructing private housing and holiday villas
Designing and restoring mud-brick houses
1998-2001 Akhenaten City Palace, Luxor/Cairo: Design work for the decoration for the reconstruction of the city of Tell el Amarna as a tourist development
2001-2003 American City College Cairo: Wrote and implemented their art
curriculum for all grades
2003-2005 El Yamama Center of Prince Mohammed Bander Abd el Aziz, Cairo: Designed and implemented the decorative work
2005-2007 Cairo: Various decorative projects for buildings and offices including Peach Investments and Ayun Tourist Developments

Group Exhibitions:

1994-1995 Riviera Gallery (two thematic group exhibitions), Hastings,
East Sussex
2011 El Sawy Culture Wheel Center, Jerusalem Group exhibition, January, Cairo
2012 El Sawy Culture Wheel Center, Spring collective, May, Cairo
2013 El Sawy Culture Wheel Center, April, Cairo
2016 El Sawy Culture Wheel Center, Spring collective, May, Cairo
2016 UNESCO Art in Education, Alexandria Atelier, guest speaker and exhibitor May, Alexandria
2017 The Matter of Time, El Sawy Culture Wheel Center, November, Cairo
2018 Ostraca Gallery Collective, January, Hurghada
2019 International Art Symposium, Hurghada
2020 2nd Egypt International Art Salon, Hurghada
2020 The Continent, exhibition of the Luxor African Film Festival, Luxor
2020 Nūn Art Gallery Luxor, Summer Collection 2020
2020 Aldau International Art Festival II, Ostraca Gallery, Hurgada
2021 3rd Egypt International Art Salon, Cairo
2021 The Dialogue, double exhibbition with Khaled Al Tahmazi, Ostraca Art Gallery, Hurghada
2021 Couples, Group Exhibition, Nūn Art Gallery, Luxor
2021 Nūn Art Gallery Luxor, Summer Collection 2021
2021 Aldau International Art Festival III, Ostraca Gallery, Hurgada
2021 In the Picture, double exhibbition with Mahmoud Mokhtar, Nūn Art Gallery Luxor
2022 World Youth Art Forum, Hurghada
2022 Nūn Art Gallery Luxor, Retrospective 2022