Yaser Saoudy is an Egyptian visual artist from Aswan. He did not come to painting through the usual fine arts school route. He graduated from the Higher Institute for Languages in 2012 with a degree in German, then developed his painting largely on his own. What began as something personal gradually became the work he wanted to build his life around.

That independence shows in the range of his work. Yaser moves between acrylic, watercolor, gouache, oil, pastel, ink, pencil, and mixed media rather than limiting himself to a single technique. His portfolio includes still lifes, landscapes, figures, architectural scenes, and loose abstract works. Acrylic remains his preferred medium, especially when he wants to work quickly and directly with color.

Aswan has had a lasting influence on the way Yaser sees color and light. He speaks about growing up there as something that shaped his eye before he ever thought seriously about becoming an artist. You can see that sensitivity throughout his work, especially in the strong greens, blues, earth colors, reflected light, gardens, water, old walls, and ordinary objects that repeatedly appear across the portfolio.

Yaser is also interested in the private reason a painting gets made. He describes his portfolio as a kind of diary. Individual works can begin with a memory, a difficult period, a moment of happiness, or simply something that stayed in his mind long enough that he needed to paint it. He prefers the work to remain spontaneous rather than overly controlled.

His work has been exhibited in Egypt since 2016, including appearances at El-Hanager Art Center, the Cairo International Book Fair, the Greek Campus at the American University in Cairo, Azad Gallery in Zamalek, Art Corner Gallery, and Al-Mamar Art Hall. He has also participated in the Young Visual Artists Forum at the Cairo Opera House and the Fayoum Forum for Fine Arts.

For Yaser, painting is ultimately a very direct act. Something catches his attention, stays with him, and eventually becomes an image. Sometimes the result is recognizable and quiet. Sometimes it breaks apart into color, marks, and movement. He is less concerned with keeping every painting inside one stylistic category than with finding the right visual language for the particular thing he wants to paint.