Emerging talent: Mardo El-Noor
By Gena Tuffery,
Idealog March/April 2007, page 20. Illustration by Mardo El-Noor
Former dentist turned DJ turned graphic designer, Mardo El-Noor is Idealog’s pick for future greatness
It’s difficult to put Mardo El-Noor in a box, but there’s no need to—he’s pretty good at compartmentalising himself. After abandoning his burgeoning dental career in Jordan, El-Noor decided to “have a go” at remixing music. Although he’d never previously created a note, six months later the native Iraqi was signed up with record giant, EMI.
Goal achieved, El-Noor moved to New Zealand and onto career number three: creating static digital images and short films. “Until then, I’d never in my life thought of doing any art,” he says.
No surprise then, given his beginner’s luck, that El-Noor became AUT University’s first student to skip from a one-semester Certificate in Graphic Design, to a Master of Arts. Six months later he threw away a few more career ladder rungs by winning the inaugural Idealog Award for Post Graduate Research in Graphic Design.
Admitting to being “crap at drawing”, El-Noor’s art consists of a digital collage of surreal images designed to ensure the viewer “is not left with a pleasant feeling”. His next goal is to turn his work into a short film to complete his thesis.
The disconcerting, fragmented nature of El-Noor’s work is a natural reflection of his disjointed history. “I was born in Germany where I was too Middle Eastern. When my family moved back to Iraq I was too German. When we went to Jordan I was too Iraqi. Now I’m in New Zealand I’m just too different!”
Although you probably can be too different when working as a dentist, this quality is unlikely to hamper El-Noor’s art career. If he remains an artist. We wouldn’t be surprised if El-Noor crops up one day as a lion tamer—he certainly wouldn’t be.
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