Abdelrazek Okasha
Abdulrazak Oshaka is a French-Egyptian artist who has long been well-known in the Arab world and is now also becoming increasingly recognized in France, his homeland.
Oshaka studied extensively at the School of Fine Arts in Cairo, with his family making significant sacrifices so that he could master his art.
Oshaka grew up in the shadows of the 'Six-Day War (1967), forced to witness firsthand the pain and anguish of a silenced people. The impact of these memories are evident in the expressive distortions he gives to the struggling subjects in his paintings, which relay an ill-concealed sensitivity and anguish.
Powerful and all-encompassing, Oshaka's work is inextricably wrapped up with the artist himself, with his artistic strength immediately visible to the audience. Viewers are instantly made aware of Oshaka's desire to balance the lines in his work, his individual use of deformation and distortion, and color, and, like Oskar Kokoschka, whom he admires, his obsession with penetrating the facade and tapping into the secret lives of his models.
