SALAH KAMAL ELDINE ELMUR

Date of Birth: 11 October 1966

Place of Birth: Khartoum – Sudan

Permanent Address: P. O. Box. 12040 Khartoum – Sudan Tel +249- 9- 12989510

Email: S_elmur@hotmail.com

 Education:

 1989 Graduated From the College of Fine and Applied Arts,

          Sudan University of Science & Technology – Sudan Graphic Design Dept. B.A

 Workshops:

1989: German Sudanese Art workshop (for Black Colour) Khartoum - Sudan.

1989: German Sudanese Art Workshop for (Collage) Khartoum - Sudan.

1994: AMAL Organization at Goethe Institute Khartoum - Sudan.

1994: Golden Joubeel of El Sebyan children magazine by Ministry of Education. Khartoum - Sudan

1997: Austrian Artist Visit at PAA YA PAA ARTS CENTRE Nairobi - Kenya

1997: Sudanese Contemporary Artists Visit at Masai Camp Arusha – Tanzania.

1997: Sudanese Contemporary Artists Visit at International Mushi School   Mushi – Tanzania.

1999: Sudanese & Canadian Artist – Khartoum - Sudan.

1999: Sharjah International Art Biennial. Sharjah - UAE

2000: Children Book Illustration Cairo - Egypt.

Individual Exhibitions

 1984: Meridian Hotel Khartoum - Sudan.

1991: Aram Gallery with Ashtar Art Gallery Damascus - Syria.

1994: The French Cultural Centre Khartoum - Sudan.

1994: Goethe Institute Khartoum - Sudan.

1995: Ashtar Art Gallery Damascus - Syria.

1997: One Off Art Gallery Nairobi - Kenya.

1998: College of Fine & Applied Arts Khartoum – Sudan.

1998: Baladna Art Gallery Amman – Jordan.

1998: Tulifanya Art Gallery Kampala – Uganda.

2000: Juliana Art Gallery Kampala – Uganda.

2002: The French Cultural Centre Khartoum – Sudan.

2004: Tulifanya Art Gallery Kampala – Uganda.

 Collective Exhibitions:

1985: Sudan Call Show Friendship Hall Khartoum – Sudan.

1988: Goethe Institute Khartoum – Sudan.

1989: Two Man Show at C.I.D.IA.F.  Madrid – Spain.

1991:  Five Sudanese Contemporary Artists at Belad Elsham Damascus – Syria.

1991: Two Man Show at Noon Art Gallery Cairo – Egypt.

1991: Children's Book Design Exhibition Abu-Dhabi – U.A.E

1994: Goethe Institute Nairobi – Kenya.

1995: French Cultural Centre Khartoum – Sudan.

1996: Ourse Ghana at City Theatre Hall Beirut – Lebanon.

1996: The French Cultural Centre Khartoum –Sudan.

1996: Opening Ceremony of Shibraen Art Centre Khartoum – Sudan.

1996: Sudanese Contemporary Arts by Agip Khartoum – Sudan

1997: Austrian Workshop's work at PAA YA PAA ARTS CENTRE Nairobi – Kenya

1997: Contemporary Artists from Sudan at Masai Camp Arusha – Tanzania.

1997: Sharjah Art Museum. Sharjah – UAE.

1997: Bangladesh International Art Biennial Bangladesh.

1998: Tulifanya Art Gallery Kampala – Uganda.

1998: One of Art Gallery Nairobi – Kenya.

1998: Mezaluna Art de Afriqu Arusha – Tanzania.

1998: UN. Hale Nairobi - Kenya

1998: Agha Khan Cultural Centre Zanzibar – Tanzania .

1998: Tulifanya Art Gallery Kampala - Uganda.

1999: Sudanese & Canadian Artist Moose Jaw – Edmonton – Winnipeg - Canada

1999: French Cultural Centre Khartoum – Sudan.

2000: Tulifanya Art Gallery Kampala – Uganda.

2000: Mezaluna Art de Afriqu Arusha – Tanzania.

2001: The German Cultural Centre. Khartoum – Sudan

2004: British Museum United Kingdom.

2004: Children Book Illustration at World Arab Institute Paris – France.

Permanent Shows:

One Off Gallery – Nairobi – Kenya.

Tulifanya Art Gallery Kampala Uganda.

Sarang Art Gallery – Nairobi – Kenya.

Private Collections:

At: Canada, France, USA, UAE, Germany, UK, Sudan, Tanzania, Jordan, Kenya, Egypt, Spain, Syria, Lebanon, and Uganda.

Some of my work at:

Ministry of Culture       Khartoum - Sudan.

Ministry of Education Khartoum - Sudan.

C.I.D.A.F.  Madrid – Spain.

Ministry of Culture    Damascus - Syria.

Sharjah Art Museum Sharjah – UAE.

Salah Elmur

 Professor of Graduate Studies in the College of Fine Arts – Damascus

 I don't know, how these totems, leaked from the deep folds of the ancient history, blossoming like beautiful flowers along the Gereif banks. He, and other colleagues of his, filled with sacred visions of the Sudanese Modern Arts like; Mohammed Shibrain, Osman Wagei Alla and Ibrahim ElSalahi, heaped on these blessed seed African magical soil wetted with Arabic Islamic droplets.

He lives an ordinary life, gazes at totems that his mom creates, and wraps his face with the marvelous fabrics of the marvelous dress of the Sudanese women. And when the dusk closes, he is in studio; he animates these human secular images, and spills colourful atmospheres on them that are non-existent except in Sudanese worlds.

 This particularity, in Salah Elmur's works is the beautiful serene world, which parallels the chanting and dancing of Sudanese. It is the essence of a sincere art in a world that bitterly lacks the touch of the human who builds his compassionate world, not a world infested by robots.

 It is to be questioned in deed; can art really create a world with no miseries, sorrows and Killing? If we exchange our lively totems, which are like flowering perennials with steel artificially-made ones, we loose our world and the hereafter.

These symbols, created by the poetic Sudanese artist, are not strange to the ordinary beautiful Sudanese. They are from him and to him, but in an abstracted form that has an immediate visual effect, making them recognizable to the spirit, after having peeled all vague suspicions from them. They are punches of symbols formed of living human bodies and tranquil, warm and colourful images of the Sudanese soil, the soil that is rich and miserable, like heavenly dreams. 

This work of Salah, are the material in, which he lives. I sense his joy and his remote historic sadness in it. He himself, as one of these symbols breathing the colourful atmosphere of the paintings, represents warmth, affection, melodic questions and mysterious rhythmic dancing, all in personalized formations of infinite visual sustainability. His works, therefore, are placed in the frontiers of the Oriental spirit and the African mystery, face to face with the void absurdity of the metallic ebb, which deprives the modern man from his mystical totemism. We don't really know who will win in the fight between the brutal slaughter and the beauty of the soul.

 Damascus, 11^th June 1996

By Dr Fatih El Mudarris