"This exhibition is the product of a personal and intense debate, about Reality. This debate was conducted over the last few troubled months of Egypt's life. I have cast myself into this trembling body and lived with it as it twists and turns through the city's streets and squares. Confronted with a multitude of questions about purpose, ambition and the future I find myself with no answers. Instead, I performed "Ancient Sacred Rituals", bartering Reality with Dream. I know how hard it is to draw new meanings from familiar images, to take ancient symbols and display them in the present. Yet at the same time I have faith that Art has its own special laws and magic permitting us to draw together a multitude of conflicting images." (Mohamed Abla)

Mohamed Abla was born in Mansoura (North of Egypt) in 1953. In 1973 he moved to Alexandria to start a five year art study at the faculty of fine arts. After graduation he moved to Cairo to complete the obligatory military service. There he also held his first solo exhibition at the Cultura Cervantes El Cairo. In 1978 he started a seven year journey to Europe, where he visited museums in Spain, France, Belgium and Germany. There he showed his first solo exhibition at the Hohmann Gallery in northern Germany. Two years later he moved to Vienna to study graphics and to exhibit at the AAI Gallery. One year later he continued to Zurich where he studied graphic and sculpture and had a two year experience in art therapy.

In Egypt he held many solo and group exhibitions at Cairo Atelier, Mashrabia Gallery, Sheba Gallery, Cairo – Berlin Art Gallery and Zamalek Art Gallery. In 1994 he won the 1st Prize in Kuwait Biennale, in 1997 the Grand Prix at the Alexandria Biennale. Abla participated in several international events like Havana Biennale. He held several group exhibitions in the Kunst Museum Bonn. In 2007 Mohamed Abla founded The Fayoum Art Center where artists meet, work and collaborate. In the 2009 he established the first Caricature Museum in the Middle East. Mohamed Abla now lives in Egypt and works between Cairo, Fayoum and Germany.