How has this pandemic affected you and your creative output? How are you adapting to the new realities?
This is one of toughest times for all humanity. We have never seen something like this before. I followed the news from the beginning, and seeing the numbers increase everyday was really terrifying. Additionally, it makes everyone feeling helpless. I tried to adapt with the fact of isolation last month by dealing with it in many levels. On the social level by communicating with old friends, meditating, cooking, reading, and so on. On a professional level, I started a new project about the quarantine. It will be a drawing project on transparent papers, which will contain several layers of visuals that will be considered as a translation for this critical moment - text, maps, photographs and drawings. I think the final result will be an artist book format.
Please share any insights you have learned from this “lockdown/self-isolation”? Is there a special role you feel artists can play in response to the pandemic?
I do believe that the visual artists have a major role to play here in the current moment, because of the huge legacy they inherited. Maybe this assignment could start with the usual routine for any artist, by making historical research about the previous pandemic times, and how the old artists dealt with it, using their creative gifts to document the deep psychological effect this has on the societies during these hard times. Then artists using their specific style and creative approach could help to both translate and transform their respective surrounding. Even though the whole universe now is living the same situation, artists are the ones who can share completely different perspectives, as they are creating their own worlds.
How do you think this will affect artists, the art world and how people interact with art? How do you feel this crisis might reshape our societies in general?
There is no doubt that the whole universe will be changed after this pandemic crisis. The new thing here is that everyone around the globe is experiencing the same feelings – the same fears, hopes and dreams. People will recalculate their principles. We will feel more connected. We will appreciate our blessings. We will deal differently with many issues. People will change. Of course, visual arts will face the same fact of change. I believe we will see a big movement after the pandemic time. And in the future, art history will share a lot about its impact on the arts. More artists will be keen on contributing with the movement - climbing to new levels and facing their challenges. Also, I believe that more people will appreciate art and be interested in it. People will search deeply for themselves and many of them will find it in art.
© Hady Boraey,Mixed media, 80x80cm, 2020
Hady Boraey was born in Behira, Egypt. He holds a PhD and MA in Fine Arts from the Faculty of Fine Arts of University of Alexandria. As a lecturer in the Graphic Department at the University of Alexandria, he specializes in illustration, drawing, manual design, painting, traditional mixed media and installation. Boraey has participated in numerous exhibitions both in Egypt and internationally, such as in the United Arab Emirates, Poland and Canada. He has won various awards and his work is held in private collections in Egypt, Italy, Canada, Poland, UK and UAE. Through a distinctive painting technique, metaphorically and symbolically, he takes the viewer on a poetic journey to discover the unknown and to open new horizons.