By Yasmeen Mohiuddin
From its modest exterior, passersby are only allowed a brief glimpse at the walls of the Glebe Café, which are lined with colourful glass paintings inspired by one of the world’s most troubled regions.
Owner Raouf Omar’s large Plexiglas pieces are sketched on paper first and then painstakingly painted in at his home.
With titles like “Life Maker,” “Friday Morning,” and “Strength,” the vibrant mosaics depict among other things, Middle Eastern and Islamic architecture. From old Arabic movies, to camels and cobblestone courtyards, the home he left more than 20 years ago influences each delicately constructed piece.
Omar points to a painting called “Salvation,” featuring two robed women in a place of worship. They move from dark floor tiles toward yellow ones.
“This could be a mosque, church, synagogue, anything,” he says of the high-arched structure in the artwork. “When they go there they feel security. They come from darkness, the yellow is the salvation.”
Two of the café’s opposing doors, which are blocked off, are also decorated with painted glass. Behind one is a simulated flame, which leads cook Falah Algafari to jokingly refer to it as “Hell.”
Originally from the West Bank, Omar began training in art at the age of five.
“The first crayon I received from somebody, it was the best gift I ever received,” he says.
Omar pursued his master’s degree in theatre and worked in graphic art in Beirut before coming to Canada. Here, he pursued graphic design until he decided to look for a different outlet for his talent.
“I stopped doing graphic design for about eight years. I was looking for a new medium, a new era,” says Omar. “This happened accidentally. Something was accumulating until it reached the point where you create this kind of medium.”
Omar’s most laborious project is the desert motif he painted on the ceiling. It took two months and endless hours of standing on a ladder to complete.
“It’s very hard because you can’t bring in scaffolding,” he says, adding, “I worked every night.”
Omar’s artwork has been on display for about two years, but it’s in high demand. That means he’s constantly creating new paintings.
“Mostly no one [single painting] stays more than three or four months,” says Algafari.
And it’s not just diners who want to collect Omar’s work.
“I came by here for lunch and said, ‘Why don’t I take some of his [art] up as well to the same gallery?’ ” says Karin Kerr, an Ottawa–based art promoter. Kerr was on her way to an art gallery to showcase another artist’s work and thought Omar’s would fit the display as well.
“It was the paintings themselves that drove me to do it,” says Kerr.
Although she didn’t end up taking the paintings that day, Kerr says she has no doubts she will find a gallery for Omar’s art.
“I just have to set up certain business arrangements with him and find out exactly how he wants me to do it,” she says.
“It’s a very individual thing.”
In the meantime, Omar says he plans to start selling his work on the Internet in January.
However, the idea may have its drawbacks, he says.
“A friend of mine said, ‘I advise you not to do that because you’re going to ignore the restaurant and maybe need some people to work with you because…you won’t have time for yourself or the restaurant,’ ” says Omar.
So far he says he has sold more than 80 glass paintings, which can take from one week to three weeks to paint.
But Omar says he’s careful not to let anyone near his art when it’s in the finishing stages.
“You don’t let people walk around it,” laughs Omar. “If you’re losing your hair and it goes in (the painting), that’s it!”