Donya Tag-El-Din Living Art Baba sits slightly hunched, head tilted to the left, Gnarled hands, nails oil-blackened. Pistachio shells littering the ground around his tired feet. Bunions red and aching in the dim light of late night television. On the wall behind him a portrait of an African woman With gold bangles and a knowing smile. There’s a glow on her cheeks the color of warmth And strings of Technicolor beads dangling gracefully round her neck. Another 8’ x 4’ painting, oil on canvas. A lion savages a frantic horse. Claws deep in flesh, mounting the creature the cat sinks its teeth into muscular tissue. This one is hung above the tired settee littered with Dirty clothes and rolled up socks. Work boots tucked underneath. Hulking paintings, anxious brush strokes, from another time, Another man. Brimming with unsettling youth. If you stare at them, hanging there silently, you can hear them Tell a story. In a dying horse’s eyeball I see Frustration and anticipation mixed with hope and someone’s daydreams. Where did he go? Into a cold north, a factory, a discarded dream. Baba presses a pistachio to his lips, grasps it With his tongue and spits out the shells in one smooth motion. “There’s no money in art. You can’t build a life on imagination, And you can’t eat oils or paper.” M
-16-