Hamid Omaryar's Art of Painting

Khorasanzameen has the honour to introduce Hamid Omaryar, a talented painter from the land of Khorasan (Afghanistan). People like Hamid are precious treasures of our homeland, who were forced to leave the country by the destructive wars. We pray that our country becomes the nurturing home it was once, to make it possible for its gifted sons and dauhgters to return to their homes and offer their abilities to the service of their people and their motherland. We thank Hamid for sending us the samples of his beautiful work and we wish him a bright and successful artistic future.

A brief biography
Hamid Omaryar was born in 1969 in Kabul, Afghanistan. He graduated from the German Secondary school in Kabul called Lycee Amani. He then joined the study of civil engineering. At school, technical drawing and descriptive geometry draw his attention most and made a base for his art. His use of perspective drawing pulls the viewer right into the paintings and makes him become a part of them.
The artist creates his paintings exclusively in a traditional way with oil, brush and canvas. To emphasise the three-dimensional effect, he draws on large format canvas. His largest painting covers 10 square meters.

His work might be surrealistic, but one can also see his very own innovative style. Hamid s paintings mainly reflect the universe: stars, planets time and existence as a whole. It also covers architecture, culture, their transitory aspect and visions. The artist himself talks about  Space Art .

All his paintings exhibit geometrical elements, especially spherical shapes. The spherical form is essential to his art.  Sharp-edged stones in a river are eventually smoothened into round ones. Those softer forms stand for transformation and maturity. Therefore the spherical form is a sign for maturity, it is the perfect geometrical form. Nothing can replace it. (Hamid, 2003)

Most of his paintings consist of geometrical forms and expressive strong colours. The colours do not compete with the forms but increase the effects. To the question about his favourite colours, the artist responds:  the colours become interesting after they have found their perfect place in he painting. Suppose my favourite colours are X and Y but they are not where I want them to be -the effect wouldn t be pleasant at all.

Destruction can be found in many art works -mainly ruined cities. To the question whether his paintings revealed the artist s emotions or whether the destructive power exists in Hamid, he says:  I believe in The Good and The Beautiful. I also think that peace will win. But we should never forget that Evil exist and so does its destructive power. Evil was, is and will be part of mankind. I paint destroyed civilizations in order to remember, and to let others see, what military conflicts can do. We know that at the end there will be a pile of rubble and no winners. My message is: You can destroy a peaceful climate, that s easy, but to create a peaceful unity and maintain it, is ART.

What is the artist s position on society?  Wealth is not gold and money; it is culture. A society is rich when there is room for art and culture. When asked about politics, Hamid states:  All conflicts and disagreements can be solved through political dialogue only; military power is of no help.

Hamid is a solitary kind of person. He doesn t like to socialise much. His paintings are created mostly at night. He is one of the greatest artists of Space Art, but is not very interested in selling his artwork. His biggest goal is to offer all of his paintings to the people of Afghanistan and to build a museum in his county. An article in a German newspaper wrote about Hamid s art:  There is ardour beneath the ashes.