Mustafa Arruf

Mustafa Hamed Moh Arruf (8 June 1958) is a Spanish sculptor.

Mustafa Hamed Moh Arruf, born in Melilla (Spanish city located in North Africa), in 1958.

He began his artistic studies at the School of Applied Arts and Artistic Trades in his hometown and continued his training in Fine Arts in the city of Granada (Spain).

His early vocation is painting and sculpture and, although he has worked with materials such as wood, stone (in Holland) and bronze, it is with this material that he best expresses his art.

In the mid-eighties, he moved to Germany, where he performed various works presented at the House of Spain in Frankfurt.

After a brief residency in Holland, he moved to Madrid, in the nineties, an artistically very productive period, and worked with the MAGISA Bronze Foundry and the Art Gallery Series.

Later he works in the public program of Taller Schools and Oficio Houses, where he performs different teaching tasks, until he obtains a position as a restorer in the Archaeological Museum of the city of Melilla.

As the whole of his work, his urban sculpture —which is exhibited in squares, streets, avenues, parks and gardens of different countries— and public —which is exhibited in centers of different administrations— presents an important diversity, in which Artistic (ornamental) elements are combined with expressive (conceptual) elements.

A group of his works —promoted by public or private institutions, and made from his beginnings as a sculptor, in 1985, until today— the form busts or statues of famous people born or linked to his hometown: to teaching (Juan Caro Romero, 1985), to painting (Victorio Manchón, 1994), to the letters and theatrical representation (the playwright Fernando Arrabal, 1994, the poet Miguel Fernández, 1994, and the actor and theater director Antonio César Jiménez Segura, 2007), and architecture (Enrique Nieto, 2008).

Another grouping forms more avant-garde sculptures, with strong contrasts in its design: flat/ volume, soft/rough, hard/soft and, above all, diagonal/circular, with quarters of moon that makes his works contain a dynamic balance and tension.

In 1997 he won the contest that the Autonomous City of Melilla had convened for the commemoration of the V Centennial of his Spanish foundation with the work Encuentros, his most monumental and popular sculpture, although not the most successful in the opinion of its creator.

A replica of half of it is in the Juan Carlos I Park, in Madrid, at the foot of which there is transcribed a sonnet by Fernando Arrabal.

Another replica of the other half is in the Park of the Three Cultures, in the city of Toledo.

The sculptor —aware that an author should not interpret his work since the composition in the art of occupying the space depends, more than in any other discipline, on the point of view— makes an exception here with limitations:"Encounters means union of cultures, of continents, of people. It is the embrace of continents and cultures. The word "Encuentros" is very significant. This type of sculptures allows many interpretations because the mind is free. I put "Encuentros" as I could have put something else, but philosophy is the union of cultures, of Mother Earth."

In 2002 he developed a group of female sculptures, promoted by the Consejería de Obras Públicas of Melilla, which that year had decided to allocate one percent of the budget in culture for embellishment of the city.

These are works with figurative aesthetic ascription, with geometric formulation and predominance in spiral rotation.

Works in Public Areas: