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| Portrait painted by Artist Mustafa Shaheen titled Chris P. |
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| Shaheen's simple yet elegant display of the title of his exhibition. |
Friends
& Sometimes Friends: Paintings by Mustafa Shaheen
R.W.
Witt Gallery, Kadema Hall, Sacramento State University, 6000 J St., Sacramento,
CA. 95819, February 23-27, 2015, Mon-Fri., 12pm-4:30pm
Mustafa Shaheen is a Sr. student here at Sac State and is
getting ready to graduate soon. He is a Studio Art major and his medium of
choice is oil paint on canvas. His subject matter of choice is human
portraiture, but not just anyone, more importantly his friends. When looking at
Mustafa’s work, one gets a glimpse into both the artist’s life and his friends’
lives. Each portrait is lively and expressive of the individual and seems to
capture a snap shot of a moment in each individual’s life. My favorite among
Mustafa’s portraits displayed in this exhibit is titled Faith S. It is a portrait of a young woman eating a granola bar. At
first glance one might feel like this is just a snap shot of an everyday moment
and to some extent it is simply that. However, what drew my interest was the
intense expression on the woman’s face created by the deep blue shadows on her
forehead. When I looked at it I saw a moment of sadness, poverty and hunger on
the woman’s face, as if the granola bar was all that she could afford to eat
for lunch. In each of the portraits the subject seems to be engaged in some
activity such as in the portrait titled Omar.
of a man shaving his face. Mustafa takes these everyday moments and makes
them interesting by his use of engaging expression in the individuals face and
captures each moment in time. What is so unique and intriguing about Mustafa’s
portraits is the way that he uses color. He uses highly saturated colors on his
friends’ faces, but by layering one color over another the saturated colors
don’t dominate the figures faces, instead they enhance shadow and light in a
very dramatic way. Although his backgrounds are just one solid color they
somehow seem to create a sense of space.
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| Portrait of a man shaving his face titled Omar F. |
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| A stunning portrait of a woman putting on her earrings titled Gabby G. |
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Me standing next to my favorite portrait in the exhibit titled Faith S.
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