ELL Eritrean Lowland League
Mohammed Hiyabu
Mahmud Jaber Debrom, who is an Eritrean visual artist, has won the Arab Forum Fine Arts Award for his painting “ Nostalgia Home”, in London, UK on August 19, 2016. His wonderful painting occupied the third place among many contestants from all the Arab countries, as the best surrealist work on the Arab world level.
The “Nostalgia Home” painting, represents Eritrea as people and the land as the artist Debrom said. He believes, this award is not only confined to him as an artist, but also, it is a pride and glory to the Eritrean people .
This painting, came to reflect how the spiritual inspiration and nostalgia dwells within Eritreans in Diaspora and makes them eager to return to their land. It also reflects the rich traditional heritage and the beautiful and charming nature of Eritrea.
Through the painting, he tells worries and concerns of home country, but also draws the ambition and aspirations of the nation and even carved through the image of this painting, the Eritrean mosaic in multi-ethnicity and diversity in customs and traditions.
It took about three weeks for the artist Debrom to complete this great artistic work, using oil painting on canvas as work material.
The artist Debrom, draws homesickness and the Eritrean human, as the main source for his inspiration, caress his feelings always from a distance. Each spectrum is reflected through his drawings and his portrayal of the features of the Eritrean human and his daily life in his artwork.
Debrom is considered one of the pioneers of visual art in Eritrea, where he began his artistic journey by his innate talent and practice and he did not attend any technical institutes and colleges. He made his way through self development and by reading academic books on visual arts and by getting access to various technical schools.
He has also studied works of pioneer visual artists in the international museums and the art galleries in Italy, America, Egypt and Germany, since the seventies of the last century.
The style of the artist Mahmud Dberom tends to the realist school of visual art, where he adapts acrylic colors in his works with the beginning of the seventies of the last century. However, he began to diversify his methods by using oil painting and watercolor three decades ago and he also mastered drawing with charcoal and pencil.
Artist Mahmoud Debrom participated in 26 various art exhibition since 1979 and until 2012 in Saudi Arabia, Britain, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Syria and Malaysia. He won several awards and certificates of appreciation, including Saudi Arabia Airlines Contest award in 1993 and a certificate of appreciation from the Ethio-Eritrean business organization in Britain.
He has also got more than a hundred panel of holdings in museums of Abdul Raouf Khalil in Jeddah and in other galleries. He has a Personal genuine items and posters in Italy, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United States, France and the Middle East.
He is also a founding member in three Fine Arts associations, including Jeddah Society of Fine Arts for Americans and European expatriates.(Jeddah Fine Arts Society_JFAS).
Artist Mahmoud Jaber Dberom was born in 1940 in the town of Ginda in Eritrea and grew up there. He had studied elementary and medium school in Ginda and then moved to Asmara to complete his secondary education at the Islamic school.
In 1957, he emigrated to Saudi Arabia and in order to improve his standard of living and career he enrolled in private English language schools. After he had managed to strengthen his English language, he worked as a translator and as an administrative supervisor in the largest American company in Saudi Arabia then. He had also worked as a senior officer in other large foreign companies in the KSA until he moved to his alternative exile in London, UK.
He has got married in 1960 and has five daughters and two sons and many grandchildren.
Mohammed Hiyabu,
Eritrean Journalist currently based in Cairo, Egypt.
