Damon studied printmaking at the Victorian College of the Arts and Glasgow School of Art as well as Advanced Figure Drawing with Godwin Bradbeer at RMIT. In 2000 he graduated from VCA with a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) in Printmaking.

Damon Kowarsky in Cairo

In Visible Cities - 8 May to 2 June

Damon Kowarsky is excited and motivated by travel, and has spent much of his artistic career drawing cities and villages, as well as people and artifacts, in North Africa, West Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He has what appears to be an obsessive interest in the forms of the city. In Kowarsky's hand, even the most chaotic public intersection appears quiet and clean, an effect he compares to 19th century photography.

"I draw slowly, and if you are drawing a street scene, the people move too fast. Think about the early days of photography; you would see the Champs-Elysees without people because the exposure was half an hour long,"

Kowarsky's exhibition "In Visible Cities" at the Mashrabia Gallery in the heart of down town Cairo features etchings and drawings based around the theme of the city. The exhibition is based on Kowarsky's time in Cairo, his visits to Damascus, Chicago and New York, and his home town of Melbourne.

While every different city in the drawings at Mashrabia has distinct and unique characteristics, Kowarsky creates formal continuity between disparate places. In his hands, the ancient Silk Road city of Khiva, in Uzbekistan, shares a blocky, angled outline with the skyscrapers of New York City. The repetition of forms creates a sense of universality in the cities of the world.

When humans enter Kowarsky's images, they take up half the frame. Often drawn from behind, they offer a near-silhouette, imposed over the distant image of a city. Kowarsky presents people and cities as equally large and distinct entities. People make their way into Kowarsky's drawings as they make their way into his transient life.

"It is these connections that interest me as much as the unique characteristics of each place," he said.

During Damon's stay in Cairo he was also invited to present a zine [short for magazines] making workshop with Cairo writer and journalist Nancy Ibrahim. The SAWA zine making workshop was gratefully supported by the Australian Embassy Cairo.