Nature as a Teacher: How We Understand Creativity Through the Environment – with International Artist Mohamed Mostafa
🎨🌿 Third Lecture in the Series:
“The Creativity of Place and Time – A Dialogue Between Art, Nature, and Humanity”
An exploratory journey that bridges art, architecture, and nature to understand how each influences the others—and how humans can reshape themselves through these elements.
🔍 This lecture explores nature as a source of inspiration for human creativity. It discusses how we can learn creative thinking techniques from our surroundings, the influence of the natural environment on creativity, how humans draw from nature in art and architecture, and how nature shapes human consciousness.
The session approaches creativity from a visual arts perspective, through the journey of an artist whose work is deeply inspired by the spirit of life as expressed through nature. His artistic awareness was shaped by his connection to the philosopher and artist Hamed Said (1908–2006), pioneer of the Egyptian school of art and life. He came to see nature as a book carrying a message, one that each person reads with their unique abilities—discovering themselves anew with every line they read.
This form of reading requires a special inner readiness: a continuous process of purification and clarity of heart, through which the heart becomes gentle and receptive, learning how to truly see and listen. The artist shares milestones from his experience as a researcher and visual artist, showcasing images and artistic studies that explain his deep connection with nature. He introduces the language of form in nature—how volume, scale, color, and touch inspire the artist—and shares his personal contemplation of unity within diversity, of the universal in the individual, and of the infinite revealed within what we often think is limited and visible. It is a journey of self-realization through an artist’s experience.
🗣 Mohamed Mostafa is an Egyptian visual artist and painter, born in Cairo in 1985. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, specializing in oil painting (2007). During his studies, he was deeply influenced by artist Hamed Said, who played a significant role in shaping his artistic vision.
He began his professional career in advertising between 2007 and 2012, working with various agencies in Egypt, Bahrain, and the UAE. Mohamed has participated in numerous group exhibitions and received many international awards. Notably, he was selected for the American Society of Illustrators’ Exhibition (2020) and the American Illustration Art Competition (2018 & 2020). He was also chosen among the Top 200 illustrators worldwide by Lürzer’s Archive. His accolades include the Award of Excellence from the New York Art Directors Club and the Mahmoud Kahil Award for expressive illustration from the American University of Beirut, among many others from international art festivals.
