Photos: Courtesy of I. Ahmed III and Samer Fouad

Ibrahim Ahmed’s Bio:

Born and raised in the Middle East, Ibrahim Ahmed was originally trained as a writer. While pursing a writing major at Rutgers University, Ahmed embraced his life-long interest in the fine arts. Working with both traditional and non-traditional media- like found windowpanes- he has developed a unique aesthetic.

Ahmed’s aesthetic is subtlety abstract in subject but immensely powerful when seen in the flesh. His larger than life glass pieces gently hint at a Middle Eastern influence, due to his use of arabesque patterns and translucent warm tones. Ahmed’s work is evocative of a stain glass tradition from Eastern Europe and the Middle East during the late 16th and 17th centuries. This stylistic revivalism not only harkens the viewer back to a traditional form of art, but also recreates a sense of immense power that was once seen in this form.

Interestingly, the sensual and sophisticated beauty of Ahmed’s windows evolves from a place of darkness. These pieces, which are exhibited in specific and intricate installations, were inspired by Ahmed’s childhood in Bahrain. In a recent interview the artist spoke of his recollections of windows that were taped across to protect them from breaking during a potential bombing. Ahmed has turned feelings that were once terrifying into something constructive and irresistibly beautiful.

Ibrahim Ahmed’s fine artwork is constantly evolving as he expands his use of media, style, and inspiration. His work has been shown all over New York City and Newark, New Jersey.

GrungeCake: What is the Arabic word for “yams”?

Ibrahim Ahmed III: The Arabic word for yams is baa-taa-ta. Assuming that we’re talking about ’sweet potato’ yams.

GrungeCake: Most artists shy away from exploring other artists’ works for inspirations in fear of copying or emulating someone else’s style. Does this statement stand valid for you?

Ibrahim Ahmed III: Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten the chance to go gallery hopping much. It’s unintentional, I don’t avoid going to shows, I just don’t get the opportunity to go much. I will say that I do enjoy learning various philosophies of fellow artists, or methods. It’s how I evolved into my style of work; fusing Abstract Expressionist philosophy and Islamic Calligraphy/Arabesque work.

GrungeCake: As an inactive fine artist, I feel your markings come from somewhere unknown, yet familiar. It takes me back to art history class. In our current world of fast-paced mass-communication and omni-digital tastes, you serve as my time capsule and source of rejuvenation. Thank you.

Ibrahim Ahmed III: Well I’m honored, really.

GrungeCake: Which artist’s masters or amateurs, have you completely enjoyed and recommended to other artists?

Ibrahim Ahmed III: I’ve always loved three artists, either for their philosophy, method, art, or simply their raw character, and they are as follows (in no particular order): Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, and Jean Michel Basquiat.

GrungeCake: In a recent interview, you spoke of your recollections of windows taped across to protect them from breaking during a potential bombing. Intelligently, you have been able to turn feelings that were once terrifying into something constructive and irresistibly beautiful. Do you feel there is a connection between that and the objective of GrungeCake?

Ibrahim Ahmed III: A contemporary art advisor who I work with, Jasmine Wahi, has emphasized the emersion of beautiful art through conflict, and I think it’s a sentiment that is also present in GrungeCake. I truly dig the attitude of it, the visuals, and taking upcoming artists (unknowns and the neglected) and giving them an outlet of exposure, a voice. There is some sort of parallel. I’ve taken an experience, living in Bahrain during the first Gulf War, and rather than be political and angry about it, I took something as irrelevant and miniscule as windows and brought it to the fore front, I gave the memory of my father taping windows a voice, so that others could experience it on a different level.

GrungeCake: What does “GrungeCake” mean to you? Will you share this link with all of your friends and family? What do you think about our website, www.grungecake.com?

Ibrahim Ahmed III: GrungeCake, I feel (since I was, and still am a big fan of Nirvana), is homage to the Grunge movement, which was not only a sound, but a look and a lifestyle. Take all those things and bake it in an oven and you got yourself a cake served in a magazine: GrungeCake.

GrungeCake: You have stated, “I strongly believe that any form of expression, if genuine, is sacred, and that not everything has to have a message or an explanation. The Source of all creativity is infinite and boundless, and sometimes, especially for me, cannot be explained in words, but can definitely be captured in visual form.” Is this the reason for the “Untitled” entitlements? What do the equations stand for in your titles? Ie: Untited 6+7.

Ibrahim Ahmed III: This is the reason why my latest paintings are all Untitled, yes, but it was also because when I first started painting, I would title my paintings. What I found out was that if I named a painting, say, The Worshipper (which is the name of an actual painting of mine) the viewer would always ask me: ‘Where is the worshipper? I don’t see it”. I felt this took away from the work, and that the viewer would miss out on the experience of just taking the painting in for what it was, rather than trying to find the titles’ literal meaning within the painting.

The equations in the painting aren’t an equation, the + sign is merely painting 6 AND 7. Most of my earlier works have been diptych or triptych, so instead of typing ‘and’ my web designer, Michael Mckeon put the + sign.

GrungeCake: Have you discovered yourself as an artist?

Ibrahim Ahmed III: I definitely feel that my voice as an artist has broken in. What I do with that voice is the fun part. Do I want to serenade the world with a voice like Barry White, or Marvin Gaye? Or do I want to catch it off guard by singing like Kurt Cobain, or Cedric Bixler Zavala? I’m having a good time going back and forth nonetheless.

GrungeCake: Which do you enjoy more, contemporary installments or abstract painting? Do you enjoy any modern contemporary artists?

Ibrahim Ahmed III: I enjoy both contemporary installments and abstract paintings. I definitely enjoy and LOVE Mark Bradford, whom I had the pleasure of meeting over the summer at his second showing at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. I dig Ayad Alkadhi’s work, Dahlia Elsayed is another artist who I absolutely admire and respect visually and philosophically.

GrungeCake: The voice that you speak of hearing whilst creating: is it an inner-voice or a celestial voice?

Ibrahim Ahmed III: The voice I hear is an inner voice, but I do believe that the voice in us is a celestial one. We are created from the Creator, and therefore it is in us all. Listening to that voice, is listening to the Creative Source.

GrungeCake: Safi music is a large part of who you are as an artist. Could you recommend some Safi music for us to create to?

Ibrahim Ahmed III: I could and would be honored to recommend some artists. The Sufi musician I’m familiar with, on a mainstream level that is attainable online, or in a store, would be the one and only Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Now what he did was specifically called Qawwali music, but it is considered Sufi music, which ultimately venerates the Prophets of the three main Abrahmic Faiths. Other musicians I know would be literally impossible to find, because they’re local guys from my father’s village in Egypt.

GrungeCake: What was your experience like showing with Poster Boy at the JaJo Gallery?

Ibrahim Ahmed III: My experience showing with Poster Boy and Aakash Nihalani, the other artist in the show, was challenging. Here I am working with, what people would call a ‘street artist’, and I’m what people would call a ‘fine artist’ (not claiming one to be better than the other). I remember asking myself ‘How am I going to share a space with someone creating art that is completely different than mine, make it look like one show without either of us losing artistic integrity?’. Before that show, I was only doing two-dimensional work; working on canvas, plexi glass whatever other flat surfaced objects I could find. I was initially supposed to work on large plexi glass piece hanging from the ceiling, but when we found out that this was a liability (the plexi would have snapped due to how large and how heavy it was) I could no longer hang my work across the ceiling. I was stuck with this dilemma two weeks before the show. I had a very small budget, and I wasn’t left with many other options after the fact. I thought of just going to a junkyard and finding car doors to work on, when the co-owner of Jajo, Rebecca Jampol, recommended I find windows from local junkyards. So I went on a hunt, in Newark, for windows and got to work. It was because of that show that I started using found objects (working in the ‘assemblage’ arena of art) and those objects happened to be windows, radiator mesh, and street sweepers’ metal bristles, which I made my arabesque patterns with. The rest is kind of history. So in conclusion I’d say it was an experience that helped me grow as an artist; every artists’ dream.

GrungeCake: Have you read the post via animalnewyork.com? How do you feel about being denoted “some other guy” as your prefix?

Ibrahim Ahmed III: Shit happens. If someone wants to write a blog, or an article on a show; doing research about everyone involved in the show would benefit you as a ‘journalist’. To refer to any artist as ‘some other guy’, well it’s a lack of investigative work.

GrungeCake: Kindly list the galleries you have shown.

Ibrahim Ahmed III:

2009

Window Spaces, Atlantic Assets Pop Up Space, Brooklyn, NY
Vessel, Rupert Ravens Gallery, Newark, NJ
Converse 4 A Cure, The SEED Gallery, Newark, NJ
Razors Tape & Glass, Jajo Gallery, Newark, NJ
ArtReach XVII, City WithOut Walls, Newark, NJ
One City, Jajo Gallery, Newark, NJ
Giving Cancer the Boot: A Silent auction for Ovarian Cancer, New York, NY

2008

Contemporary Art Network – New York, NY
Soul on Skin-Breast Cancer Recovery through Tattoo Art, New York, NY

2007

Group Exhibition, Columbia University, New York, NY
Drawing the Line Against Domestic Violence: A Silent Auction, New York, NY

2006

Group Show, Academy Street Firehouse, Newark, NJ
MSA Group Exhibition, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ

GrungeCake: Do you feel fans and onlookers get your work?

Ibrahim Ahmed III: Hmmm. The fans and onlookers. I don’t know if it’s about getting the work when it comes to abstract expressionist art. I feel as though I’ve translated the Creative Sources ‘message’ correctly if the onlooker and fans feel it. It’s about, at least for me, making the viewers feel something; undeniable and true, and that those feelings are powerful and potent.

GrungeCake: You were born in the Middle East and trained as a writer. Have you neglected your writing skills for free form, abstract illustration, and installation? Which styles of writing did you practice at Rutgers University? Were the writing exercises intense? Which were your favourite? Which were your least favourite?

Ibrahim Ahmed III: You know the word neglect makes me feel guilty, because I have left writing behind, although creative expression is a language that has many dialects. It’s like me speaking Arabic in the Egyptian dialect, rather than speaking the Bahraini dialect to which I was accustomed speaking whilst I living there. I can speak both, but regardless I am speaking Arabic. I see it as the same thing with writing and painting/visual arts. At Rutgers I studied English Literature, which ranged from American Contemporary to the Greek classics. My least favourite was the Greek classics (my professors would kill me if they knew I said this). Now, my favourites: Hemmingway, Baldwin, Vonnegut, Mahfouz, Kincaid, Bulosan, all of which are contemporary American, or novelists who focused on the subject matter of immigration, which I related to of course being an immigrant myself. The writing was always intense, and I think it was all that writing, I was forced to do, that turned me off from it all. I want to return to it one day, but I feel there is too much that communicates threw me that writing would limit it at this point in time.

GrungeCake: I am in love with Chuck Taylor’s. How can I get my hands on a pair of your designs? Are they for sale? Where can I pick them up?

Ibrahim Ahmed III: Thank you. I actually did those Chucks for a non-profit organization called ‘Converse4acure‘, which is about bringing awareness to sickle cell anemia. They threw a function to raise funds, so the founder, Ediomi Utuk, collected a bunch of artists, predominantly from Newark (where there is an upcoming art scene), to draw, craft, design Chucks to auction off. The Gold pair, on my Facebook, were inspired by Muhammad Ali. I just thought, ‘what would he wear?’, and called them FLAB SLAB (Fly Like A Butterfly, Sting Like A Bee). To get a pair people usually put a request in on my Facebook page, they buy the pair and I draw on them. Then I hand them over. Very one on one basis and simple. Everyone I’ve done anything for have been in the tri-state area.

GrungeCake: What’s next on the agenda of Ibrahim Ahmed?

Ibrahim Ahmed III: Well, what’s next? Let’s see. This year Resin Denim will be launching their high end denim line, which is featuring my artwork in the pocket lining. I’m also thinking about getting back to the human figure; particularly working with a transgender woman, Gisele, formerly known as Gisele Xtravaganza (from the House of Xtravaganza). The series is called ‘Transferred Soul‘. Where and when I’m showcasing this project? I don’t know as of yet, because it’s still in the works. I think that’s all I have really planned for short term goals this year, everything else will fall in place.

GrungeCake: Lastly, I wanted to tag that I have known you for quite sometime via the MySpace experience. Though we have yet to meet in real life, you have managed to capture me with your subtleties, art wise, and your mention of a hookah bar. You have a done a good job, might I add. Haha, you owe me a hookah bar date.

Ibrahim Ahmed III: All these compliments, thank you! We have known each other via the cyber world for quite a while now. Funny we haven’t met in person, yet. We definitely should roll to a hookah spot. You tell me when and where and I’ll be there. You’re in NY right?

GrungeCake: Yes, I am. Haha.