Men as models could be the fillip a forlorn urban landscape needs, indicates Australian artist Damon Kowarsky in conversation with Gamal Nkrumah There is something almost overpoweringly masculine about the drawings, etchings, illustrations and prints produced by the softly spoken Damon Kowarsky, an Australian artist who is currently exhibiting his work at the Mashrabiya Gallery in downtown Cairo. Women are nowhere to be found in his concrete jungles. He obviously has no time for frills and flounces. During the course of our conversation, I find myself flailing around searching for ways of describing his dusky, murky and somewhat shadowy depictions of cities he has visited and deeply cares for -- Cairo, Damascus, Khiva in Uzbekistan, Istanbul and New York City. Overcast grey, russet of the dreariest and dirtiest sort, lead-and- ashen ghostly whites. The cheeriest of the lot is undoubtedly Damascus with its pearl grey jade ambiance and the mysterious and muscular Michel in the midst of it all. "No, he is not Syrian. He is Australian. A friend and a very good model." As a taxi whisks me through Tahrir Square, I reflect that the Mashrabiya Gallery is a world away from the glamorous galleries of the leafy Cairene island suburb of Zamalek. The Mashrabiya is exactly where one would expect to find the works of Damon Kowarsky. The young man who sits across from me is a model of self-containment. He possesses the tightly composed and almost wooden, adrenaline-charged serenity of an artist who has worked flat-out to produce haunting images of sprawling metropolises such as Cairo or New York, or of fairytale-like cities on the ancient Silk Roads, such as Khiva. As Kowarsky morphed from his hometown of Melbourne to the madness of hectic Cairo, his predilection for stark cityscapes is a reminder that his native Australia is one of the most urbanised societies on earth. "90 per cent of Australians live in cities. 50 per cent live in the two largest cities of Sydney and Melbourne," Kowarsky elucidates, briefly reminiscing about the unforgettable cities he has travelled to. The conversation at first is gauche and rather maladroit. Kowarsky is as neat and concise in his conversation as the cityscapes he etches on canvas and paper. "The outback is not where the vast majority of Australians are. Melbourne is home. That city is where my closest friends and family are. Cairo, on the other hand, is a city that inspires me." In Cairo he is in his element. He wears open-toed sandals on the opening night of his exhibition: perfect for haunted house- hunting in ancient Cairene alleyways. The sturdy sandals are a distinguished touch, of course, but a practical one too. They are efficient, in other words, and effective for the task at hand. He is an artist, after all, and one who is on the move. In step with the Cairene spring, the heat and spirit of the 25 January Revolution still hovering over Tahrir Square, Kowarsky explains why the area of Al-Darb Al-Ahmar holds a special fascination for him. It is characteristic of Cairo, he says, the city in miniature. "The density of the buildings. The unplanned nature of the spatial spread, both vertical and horizontal. When people have some extra cash and money to spend, they add floors without permits and without proper plumbing. People have control over their environment. I like that." Kowarsky's Cairo is also something of a melancholy charade depicted in rawly physical and symbolic terms. I inquire further into his relationship with the city. The façades, he says, although falling apart, have an ancient history. Like Cairo itself, the city's alleyways and doorways tell tales that are woven like a tapestry around the residents and their ghosts, extending across cultures and through time. The building's occupants paint the rooms they live in and the balconies and façades. There is a quality to the best of these haphazard creations that Kowarsky finds fascinating. "I understand that the Agha Khan Foundation is restoring the area. In historic times, Al-Darb Al-Ahmar used to be a suburb of Cairo where the wealthy elite lived. Then came the 1952 Revolution, and the remnants of the rich and powerful people who lived there moved out and the peasants moved in. But traces of the beautiful mansions of the past have survived. The district has everything -- layers and layers of everything from every age," he says, entranced by the beauty of it all. "I loved the city at once on first sight." This is typical of Kowarsky's candour. The characteristic and distinctive elements of the cities he depicts in his work are easily discernable. However, they cohere into abstract harmonies. His Istanbul, for instance, is like no other depiction of the city that I know of. "I am not interested in the picture-postcard Istanbul and the famous landmarks. I find the minutiae far more interesting, like in Cairo. The satellite dishes and the metro system are as compelling as the majestic minarets of the great mosques." And then there is Sarouja, not quite a city, nor even a town, but rather a village in the heart of the enchanting Syrian countryside somewhere between Homs and Hama. Michel poses in Sarouja as well. And there is Paul, presumably an African- American, Ahmad Abdel-Fattah and Mostafa Badawi. Lonesome city lads, I suspect. Jaisalmer, the jewel of India's Rajasthani crown, glows a faintly reddish hue. The majestic Jaisalmer with its distinctive, authentically Indian architecture sharply contrasts with the meek mud-brick beehives, the conical shapes of Sarouja's peasant homesteads. This is a reflection, perhaps, of the criss- crossing worlds that co-exist in Kowarsky's aesthetic intellect. His art accentuates otherness and otherworldliness. Yet, in order fully to apprehend the specificity of space and form in each city Korwarsky sketches, the caricature confirms the fact that the contemporary histories of global cities are shared in a curious fashion. The shared modern memory of cities is claimed even in or despite their differences. Mohamed Naguib is a masterpiece, and Nubar Street is stunning, though the inhabitants are extraordinarily invisible in Kowarsky's sketches of the spirits of cities. The spatial utilisation is never haphazard, even though at times it can appear to be so. The buildings themselves, and the artist's approach to the spatial settings of these global cities, conjure up images of residents you do not see. Kowarsky is oblivious to everything except the lonely male figures that embody the solitariness and at times detachment of individuals from the concrete jungles they dwell in. "I respond to what I see," Kowarsky clarifies. He is impulsive and proud of it. "I am interested in the collage, the collision between different styles and periods standing side by side." History aside, his illustrations also offer disentangled talking points. There is kudos to living with vulnerability and being unwilling to brook any dissent from the urban norm. But the harsh reality is that the transformation of rural landscapes into residential real-estate creates a poignant sense of separation and urban alienation. Artistically depicting the stark creations of the concrete jungle with intense sensitivity, Kowarsky's illustrations are reminiscent of the proverbial dialogue of the deaf. While his models may not be hard of hearing, it is as if they have arbitrarily renounced their capacity to listen to the humdrum of the global city. Lacking a sense of hearing, they aren't exactly tone deaf since they have an astounding capacity to communicate in silence, without uttering a word and even staring back at the onlooker. Kowarsky's case is compelling. He seems deliberately to shun the green angle, disregarding the beauty of urban greenery. What gives Kowarsky's etchings their extra edge is that he constructs territorially based urban images that are devoid of traffic, terraces, hedges and gardens, let alone of passers-by. Kowarsky has played a difficult hand well. Does he draw at dawn? His streets are deserted, as if abandoned. His vehicles, oddly parked as opposed to being in motion, are vaguely suggestive of matchbox cars. His is an urban still-life. However, where are the parks, the leafy suburbs and the woodland? I inspect his images of New York City scrupulously. It's not an oversight. "Actually, Central Park is the empty space out there in the background -- the blank spot you may choose not to see," he says with forensic honesty. Damon Kowarsky's exhibition In Visible Cities is part of the Mashrabiya Gallery's summer exhibition schedule.
