Our previous post in our Art in Sudan section was dedicated to Sudanese artist Ahmed Abushariaa; today we are pleased to introduce you to another great Sudanese artist: El Tayib Daw El Bait.

El Tayib is in his forties, he was trained at the School of Art and Design in Khartoum and lives in Nairobi, Kenya. What makes his work so interesting is his freedom to create: paintings (acrylic, oil) or textile design for fashion house KikoRomeo, El Tayib Daw El Bait even goes beyond the Muslim rejection of the human figure by drawing figures and nudes.

Here is an extract of an article about El Tayib by Frank Whalley who runs Lenga Juu, a fine arts and media consultancy based in Nairobi:

Generous washes of acrylic, oil or what looks like fabric dye form the base of many of his canvases. On them are occasionally rich passages of thickly applied paint, plus a tender ink line that is frequently employed to describe a nude body or face, and around the central image is layered fabric or a grid of string, subsumed by the paint. Images are scratched into the scumbled and glazed surface by the wrong end of the brush or any other piece of stick and he recounts with amusement how he sometimes uses a twist of fabric to apply the paint.

Frank Whalley also says that El Tayib Daw El Bait translates loosely from the Arabic as “The Joy that brings (spiritual) Light to the House“. A name with a beautiful meaning, for a great artist!