In his gallery cluttered with numerous paintings representing scenes of daily life, in the middle of portraits of Sudanese in traditional outfits or abstract drawings, this 39-year-old resident of Khartoum is inexhaustible on his natural pigments.

The coffee, rather than drinking it, he uses it to paint brown, beige and gold.

And when he has to use black or gray in his drawings, he peels a few dates to crush the pits.

To further broaden his palette, he uses colors extracted from the fruits of the doum palm and the baobab, in his large desert country, Sudan, where the forest covers only 10% of the land.

For many, he told AFP, this is all just "food".

But in reality, he continues, "we can extract magnificent colors from it".

The painter says he has a "special vision of art" and has a "particular interest in natural materials".

Sudanese artist Mouataz al-Fateh shows one of his paintings made from coffee grounds in his gallery in Khartoum, April 15, 2022 ASHRAF SHAZLY AFP

For his pigments to hold, he also has at hand a manna envied by the whole world: gum arabic, an acacia resin that has become the key ingredient in the most famous sodas, of which Sudan is the world's leading producer. .

And if his ingredients are unusual, his paintings are also sometimes.

During the popular uprising that toppled dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019, he painted "freedom, peace and justice" on a wall.

With the damage of time, he would have liked to give a new brushstroke but this painting is at the gates of the army headquarters and he has never been able to approach it again.

"I can't do it again today, I tried but I was prevented from doing so," he said, while in October the head of the army, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane put a halt to the march towards democracy.

Sudanese artist Mouataz al-Fateh shows his works exhibited in his gallery in Khartoum, April 15, 2022 ASHRAF SHAZLY AFP

Since its putsch, Sudan has been mired in a deep political crisis and the cost of living continues to soar.

For Mr. Fateh, its natural pigments could help many artists.

"They are cheap and very easy to find, some are even free," he pleads.

© 2022 AFP