But Abdeen said he was kicked out of Khartoum University's art school in 1991, after helping organize student protests against the fundamentalist regime of President Omar al Bashir. For a while he laid low. Then, in 1999, he arrived in Paris on scholarship. He has since applied for political asylum. The problem is any kind of art that opens the mind.
Freedom is forbidden in a dictatorship.
Across the region, tolerance for modern artistic expression has been spotty. Artists thrived in early 20th century Egypt, joining a larger Nahda, or political renaissance movement, and sieres on their plastic models. And when Mohammed Khalil arrived in Damascus from studies in Germany in 1988, a city resident spotted the Palestinian artist painting the likeness of another fake model. The next day, police raided Khalil's apartment and closed down the studio. But the Israeli-Palestinian clashes have proved a bigger creative obstacle.