Ammar Abo Bakr

Ammar Abo Bakr

Ammar Abo Bakr’s revolutionary street art has graced the walls of Cairo, Luxor, Frankfurt, Berlin, Amsterdam and Brussels, chronicling the Egyptian Revolution’s many turning points, as well as intertwining them with themes from Coptic and Islamic culture, folk art and Egyptology. He became most famous for his mural on Mohammed Mahmoud Street leading to Cairo’s Tahrir Square that honors those who have lost their lives in ongoing clashes with the security state.

His passion to educate and communicate through art has taken his work from his atelier and teaching in Luxor’s Faculty of Fine Art, into public space. His trademark angel-wings and the iconic eyepatch (with which he criticizes the reckless but targeted aiming of the snipers) in his depictions of martyrs of the revolution, are symbols universally accessible to the broadest possible audience.

Driven by the conviction that art belongs into the public, rather than private space, Abo Bakr and his fellow artists have created collaborative mixed-media murals, such another famous work on Qasr el-Nil Street. Creating a dialogue between ancient Egyptian symbols, poetic calligraphy, and sculpture, Abo Bakr’s work is also an attempt to beautify the Egyptian street, while giving voice to its spirit, desires and discontents.