Damascus-Sana
Many critics describe him as one of the leading contemporary Arab Impressionist plastic artists. The plastic artist, Munther Sharabi, has a rich artistic career that was filled with hundreds of exhibitions, which he left for generations, in which he made every effort to present a visual language that respects the feelings and mind of the recipient and stimulates his interest.
Sharabi, who studied art at the Fine Arts Center in Aleppo at the hands of senior plastic artists, was inspired by his subjects from the depth of society, nature and colors for him as main axes in his paintings, which he considers the letters of his alphabetical paintings, so he mixes them with his feelings and feelings towards what is drawn to appear fertile and frank.
Speaking to SANA, Sharabi explained that he was one of the owners of the Impressionist school that wanted to change public taste and transferred reality directly from nature away from imagination and the images of its artists were the daily life of people and gave each artist his personality, pointing to his admiration for the work of the pioneers of Impressionism such as Monier, Koch and Cezanne.
Sharabi, who was born in Aleppo in 1948, was impressed by its architecture, its harsh stones and the pictures of its children’s life.
Sharabi recovers the names of pioneers in the plastic movement in Syria, who studied at their hands and gained from their knowledge and rich heritage what was the richest of his artistic career, such as Ismail Hosni, Muhammad Asani, Wahid Istanbuli and Badr al-Din Mawlawi, who gave him all the care and attention, indicating that he learned from them on the level of academic principles in drawing as building and formulation Balanced and solid painting, color technology and its connotations, mass and void, etc. As for the content, learn to choose his subjects from the depth of society and that the artist's works reflect his intellectual and cultural background, his environment and his society.
In fact, Sharabi finds the first incubator for all human creativity and in nature with all its splendor and beauty, a fundamental inspiration for the process of creation and creativity, pointing out that he has been imbued with the love of nature since his childhood as his family used to spend most of the summer vacation in its arms as he used to during his studies at the Arts Center to accompany some colleagues For painting in nature, this increased his interest and love for it. He presented many works that tell the beauty of our country in all its regions.
On his handling of heritage in his paintings, he shows that he is working on formulating it in a way that achieves a balance between artistic rules, preserving the historical urban identity, deleting what is foreign to it or offending it, and adding what gives it beauty and vitality, such as passers-by, vendors, and so on.
Regarding his drawing of portraits of characters from our Syrian and Arab history, he believes that this is a duty and right for any artist, whether young or old, to highlight our symbols that spread culture and art in our country and presented many creations, pointing out that he presented in his solo exhibition (Aleppo, the scent of the past and the present) a number of Portraits of literary and artistic figures from Aleppo, such as Mustafa Al-Akkad, Khair al-Din al-Asadi, Sabah Fakhri, Sabri Mudallal, and other Syrian and Arab personalities.
Regarding his opinion of the contemporary Syrian plastic movement during the war, Sharabi believes that this movement was not at the level of catastrophe and pain, but despite that we have to be optimistic, similar to what the late writer Saadallah said, and we are condemned to hope.
At the conclusion of the interview, he expresses his satisfaction for what he presented in his artistic career, through which he participated in more than 200 exhibitions inside and outside Syria since 1966, and for the work he produced through which he monitored most aspects of the environment and society, and made every effort to present a visual language that respects the feelings and mind of the recipient, stimulates his interest and touches his human conscience .
Samar Shagari