Friday March 29th, 2024
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Egyptian Artist Clocks New York City

Fascinated by the Big Apple's grand clocks, Amir Wahib has lost himself in a journey of recording the city's most fascinating architectural wonders.

Staff Writer

We guess artists notice different things as opposed to us mere human beings. One such Egyptian artist, Amir Wahib, roamed the grand city of New York, leaving no stone unturned - or rather no clock unchecked - as he sketched away his public timepieces in the city. Devoted to the school of expressionism, his paintings are soft and soothing, depicting a moment in time when an artist saw something special in the merciless hustle and bustle of NYC. He speaks as calmly as his paintings as he tell us, “I was captivated by the city and its beautiful grandiose galleries, I realised that, just like making it into FIFA for football, to be an established artist, you needed to make it in NYC. So this has been a journey since my first visit in 2001.”

After endless research to create something that was out of the box, Wahib found his inspiration following his curiosity with The Clock Tower. Not allowed to go up to see the clocks, he used the Egyptian in him finally managing to get up there and see for himself the inner working of such an artistic structure; the start of his inspiration. His journey which lasted for a whole ten weeks with eight hours a day of getting lost in the mood and detail of the architectural masterpieces. Finally, after months of hard work his paintings were presented at the Midtown Arts Common in Lexington Avenue, Manhattan, with 25,000 people attending.

"It wasn't easy! I was the only Arab presenting and it is very rare to have Arabs presenting in the high-end galleries in Manhattan; I don’t want to say it's, racism but it is exceptionally difficult. To the extent that during an interview with a prominent Arab magazine the first question asked to me was ‘how did you manage to get in there!?’ Hopefully this will change and at the end of the day I am proud that I managed to make it.”

Presenting 21 of his paintings, Wahib has captured the beauty of New York in a way no one else has from Time Square to the Sun Square to the Paramount.