Dialogue: Marwa Raslan

The plastic artist and photographer Hassan Daoud is a figure of art and creativity in our Arab world, as he owns the reins of the brush and the lens, and his works are distinguished by the mixing between drawing and the image in what has become known as plastic photography, and the camera of Hassan Daoud had a prominent and great role in adding its aesthetics to the chosen frames of his photography which reflected many emotional aspects, and was linked with the rest of the elements of composition and light formation, to form a tissue and a special factor of magic through which his creative works jump to occupy a place among the stars of the big photographers in the world of photography.

"Ahwal Al-Ma'rifa" magazine was allowed to meet the plastic artist and founder of the Hassan Daoud Academy for Arts and Literature, so this dialogue was with him about the horizons of plastic art in the Arab world.

Hassan Daoud is a plastic artist and photographer at the same time, so what is the relationship between drawing and photography?

Drawing is the translation of what occurs in the mind and what es around in the conscience of feelings, emotions, contents and shapes seen by the eye and stored in the brain, and it is a global language read by the learned and the illiterate, having its origins and solid rules which are indispensable for any plastic artist.

And when studying drawing, we learn the study of composition, and we learn choosing the best angle for what we draw, and we learn studying the lighting from where and on which area in what we draw, whether natural or artificial lighting.

And there is a complete similarity between the fields of drawing and photography, for photography is drawing but in the language of light and shadows, and whoever wants to proceed to its practice must study the sciences of drawing and its schools and arts. And I confirm that whoever practices photography and was not saturated with the arts of drawing is lacking in many meanings and will not be able to advance or innovate.

Tell us about your last exhibition "From.. To" which was opened by the former Prime Minister Dr. Essam Sharaf.

In truth.. the title of the exhibition symbolizes its content, as this exhibition was a qualitative leap for my works from traditional photography to plastic photography, so all that I presented is the result of experiments of studies that extended for two full years.

And I displayed more than thirty works with large measurements 100x100, 70x70, 70x50 with different topics to deliver my message that photography has a wide field and its sea is big with no limits, and every artist who explores the world of photography will find that photography is not limited to direct images, and although this line is completely different from the lines of artists who work in plastic photography or Digital art, I am still developing those ideas, and I will present, d willing, in the next exhibition a more deep and more developed result.

In your capacity as an international judge, and having participated in 35 international exhibitions around the world.. how do you see the Gulf works and especially in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and do they rise to the global level?

You must know that art is an inseparable part, for any work of artistic value aims to provide a noble message, the artist is the tongue of his society, expressing his society and highlighting the general culture of the society and expressing its issues, so it is natural to be influenced by his environment.

And for this reason we find that every artist has a special character, and a specific artistic value he provides, for every artist represents himself, and represents his cultural background, his experiences, his philosophy, his thought, and his vision, therefore I cannot judge the artists of an entire region through a group of artists, as there are artists in the Gulf in general and Saudi Arabia in particular who have global participations, and despite this we can say overall that the general level in the Gulf is rising and developing, especially in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and I have judged in two local competitions in the Kingdom and the level of the participants was very promising, but I advise the Gulf artists who are still influenced by the local heritage to come out of the circle of locality like the works of some artists whose works crossed the borders.

We noticed in your last works that you presented photography in the dress of an expressive surrealist plastic school.. so what is the philosophy of that school?

This is correct.. this school relied on the studied innovation and the focus on the meaning and content, and providing scenes that discuss the issues of man and his self, and man and his society, and some matters that affect his thought, philosophy and his points of strength and weakness before himself and before others and his society, and most important than that is the simplification of ideas and focusing on the content and providing artistic that carry visible messages and hidden messages that make the recipient interact with the work and find inside it different interpretations springing from his vision, culture and sense.

You used technology in creating a new type of photography which is plastic photography.. so how did technology contribute to the development of this art?

Technology is available for everyone.. but the idea lies in utilizing this technology to produce your idea and making your own style, so that the work is more deep from the side of artistic value, and therefore I used the modern developed technology to mix between the depth of the composition and photography, so I studied the plastic arts and mixed between the composition and what I possess of sciences and arts of photography to provide new works that mix between photography and composition in a balanced way.

Some see that everyone who owns a camera became a "photographer".. what is your opinion in the spread of this phenomenon?

Any artistic work not built on a study is a failed work, for talent alone is not enough and if it is not polished by the study it dies before it lives, and my message to everyone that photography is a wide field and a big sea its science has no limits, so every photographer must perform studies or educate himself more to provide the new always, and the photographer who does not study nor learn will remain in his place and will not advance, and will not reach the position that the photographers in the world reached.

Why does the photographer resort to monochromatic photography in some of their works, and why do they prefer it over the colored picture?

We know that the photographs produced by modern cameras which we use now are colored pictures with modern color technology, and many of the photographers prefer to display their pictures after turning them from full colors to monochromatic or white and black (Black and White) believing that it is more firm, or the imitation of some big skilled photographers who prefer this type of editing for pictures. As for in my personal belief, I consider the monochromatic pictures are pictures abstract from colors giving a direct impression for the content free from the distraction of colors, so it takes the sight with ease and simplicity to the subject of the picture, as the monochromatic composition always is strong because it does not rely on the color saturation and the dissonance between color degrees which affects the colored picture negatively or positively.

Then the photographer must possess a visual balance to determine the work being colored or monochromatic?

Certainly.. not all works are suitable to be monochromatic and he must take his decision on that and on his responsibility, for sometimes the colors are a main element in the work we must not give up, like the bright details of colors which the composition relies on it is not correct to hide them by deleting the colors, and we do not forget that monochromatic does not mean only white and black, but there are other colors that give the same effect and same feeling.

You excelled in the art of "Portrait" but many people believe that "Portrait" is drawing the persons or photographing them.. how do you see that?

Portrait is not just photographing a person, it needs the artistic experience to extract the psychological part that expresses the character of the "model" that you photograph and choosing a strong story or topic that sparks the imagination of the recipient as it needs innovation to choose the appropriate lighting and angle with their connection to the background, clothes and accessories, to extract all the aesthetics from the case to achieve visual brilliance and thus not photographing any person is called the art of portrait photography.

In your capacity as an architect.. does architectural photography need special skills?

In my belief.. the modern architectural photography has special specifications with the talent, imagination and sense of the photographer of the spaces, masses, shooting angles and the special perspective of building the structure and its external lines and its architectural composition, which show the aesthetics of the work and its arts, and as well as the building proportions intended to be photographed, and the lighting falling on it, and the appropriate timing for the day capture, as well as the experience of settings to obtain the appropriate exposure and how to do night photography and utilize the available lighting to add aesthetics to the architectural elements, all are skills that hint at the culture of the architectural photographer and his thought and sense of the elements of the work and its composition.

To what extent do you agree with the saying of "Pablo Picasso" that drawing is another way to write diaries?

I completely agree.. because the image is the stopping of a part of the time in the memory of the human, so when you see the image, time will back with you to the events of the image, and these moments in general are memory and remembrance, and thus I as a human prefer the experience of expressing my self through art, for art helps us to discover our selves and elevating it and thus I will be at peace with my self, therefore we find that the style of the artist is always changing, and does not continue on one pace on the difference of the stage which the artist es through and therefore it is closer to writing the diaries because it describes what we feel in every stage of our lives.

Art has an important role to elevate the general taste and despite that art did not reach the public.. what is your explanation for that?

I agree with you.. therefore it was among the most important als of the Hassan Daoud Foundation for Arts and Literature which I established in 2016 elevating the tastes of people by the way of art, for when I teach people art the social handling between them will be more sophisticated and this will affect their tastes.. and unfortunately we are consumer societies, we do not care much about the arts and literature on the opposite of the European countries although we are the nation of "read".