{"id":253714,"date":"2019-08-05T07:00:02","date_gmt":"2019-08-05T10:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=253714"},"modified":"2019-08-02T19:32:13","modified_gmt":"2019-08-02T22:32:13","slug":"arab-women-and-politics-inspire-egyptian-artists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/arab-women-and-politics-inspire-egyptian-artists\/","title":{"rendered":"Arab women and politics inspire Egyptian artists"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 This is the first time three Egyptian artists come to Brazil to present their works at an exhibition<\/a> in S\u00e3o Paulo during the Egyptian Culture Festival<\/a>. In addition to their nationality and discoveries in Brazilian soil, the three of them have much more in common. On papers and canvas, politics and the Arab woman are shared themes. In an interview with ANBA, the artists talk about their work processes and resulting paintings.<\/p>\n

Samar Kamel<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Kamel portrays Middle Eastern women<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Between collaged Arabic newspapers texts and paint, veiled women\u2019s eyes stare at those who walks through the exhibition held at Club Homs. The works are by Samar Kamel, an Egyptian living in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. \u201cI\u2019m also a writer, so I write about women and I paint women as well. I want to put myself in it. I\u2019m a feminist. I like to put their sufferings and their feelings, and their thoughts. And being a Middle Eastern woman, I like to put whatever they suffer with,\u201d she says about issues that range from socials to religious problems. \u201cThat\u2019s why I give my best tothese pictures.\u201d<\/p>\n

The works exhibited in S\u00e3o Paulo show mixed materials and possibilities. Paintings with impasto, a technique where paint is laid in very thick layers, and collage. \u201cI love using mixed media. I like that it has different textures,\u201d explains Kamel, who uses elements such as oil paint, acrylic paint, nail polish, and even tea bags in her paintings.<\/p>\n

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Painting by Samar Kamel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the series exhibited in Brazil, Kamel depicts Middle Eastern traditionally or modernly clad women, who all bring expressiveness to the works. \u201cMany of my paintings are made to provoke. For example, I have one that shows a woman screaming against a background of Arabic words. \u201cThese are things her neighbors, the society says about her, such as \u2018fat,\u2019 \u2018black,\u2019 \u2018smoker,\u2019 things like that, because I feel like in many societies, not just in Egypt, if a woman gets divorced, for example, people will talk. Women pay the price. It\u2019s about us paying the price to live. Everything a woman do is very measured because she knows that someone will say something,\u201d she stresses.<\/p>\n

In her literary narratives, Kamel writes in Arabic and her works were published in the UAE and Egypt. \u201cI\u2019m trying to make people understand that women are different [from one another]. They aren\u2019t just half of the society. They are the society,\u201d she points out. Her works were in over 62 international exhibitions and fairs.<\/p>\n

The artist curates art events, such as 2019 do World Art Dubai, where she has exhibited for four years. While visiting S\u00e3o Paulo Museum of Art (MASP), she took the time to come up with new ideas for her exhibitions. \u201cI loved how they exhibit at MASP. It\u2019s part of my job to think about these things,\u201d said she, who saw many similarities between S\u00e3o Paulo and Egyptian cities.<\/p>\n

Lotfi Abu Sariya<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lofti Abu Sariya has over 50 years of career. The Egyptian artist who lives in Belgium, draws every day. \u201cAlways people. Always women. I only draw women. Why? I paint nice things,\u201d Lofti explains, while opening his notepad at the most recent page and starting to doodle. The creation he\u2019s making during his stay in Brazil is a drawing of a ballerina, whose skirt is made of a collaged flower he found on the Paulista Avenue.<\/p>\n

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The artist who lives in Belgium reunites the female and local politics<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His different-styled works bring themes such as loneliness and the burden of the divorce for women before the society. \u201cI think women are life. Symbols of life. And they are symbols in my paintings,\u201d he explained. His paintings use the female figure as a starting place to also deal with other themes, such as politics. In two of his paintings, he depicted, the Arab Spring, for example.<\/p>\n

Lofti explains that his art went through many phases. \u201cI started with an academic style. Then I turned to the sentimental one. Then I switched to expressionism. Now it\u2019s the start of surrealism,\u201d he explains, showing each one of the periods in his exhibited paintings at Club Homs.<\/p>\n

He was the head of design of Carrefour Advertising Department for European countries, including Portugal and Spain, but earlier in his career he started using his most singular format, the papyrus. The drawings are made on small pieces of the Egyptian material and glued to a larger base. The work with papyrus started in 1966, when Lofti decided to contemporarily use the paper as an art media. The first of his papyri is at the Papyrus Institute in Cairo.<\/p>\n

Having started drawing at twelve, the artist believes he received a gift and hopes to share it. \u201cMy project is to put many paintings in museums all over the world. I believe we all speak the same language. We all speak art,\u201d he says. \u201cArt and culture fix what politics and violence destroy,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Ahmed Samir Farid<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Egyptian artist Samir Farid was born in 1969 and studied at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science in Cairo. For the past 17 years, however, Farid works in an area other than the one he’d studied for years: he\u2019s a cartoonist. \u201cI also draw and paint, but I chose caricatures because it\u2019s more fun,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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Ahmed Samir Farid believes caricature is a light way to make art<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The artist started publishing his drawings in 2006 and, since then, he participated in national and international competition. During his stay in Brazil, Farid had a stand at Club Homs, where he offered his work to visitors. On the other hand, in his daily life he works as a freelancer and creates both caricatures and cartoons for Egyptian newspapers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like several themes, but politics is also part of my education, so you can see I have many caricatures with political figures. In my cartoons, on the other hand, I try creating a dialogue. I like not using captions so that people think on what I want to convey,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

The artist believes there\u2019s room for the number of cartoonists in the country to grow. \u201cWe have approximately 200 cartoonists, but maybe only 60 or 70 practicing [professionally],\u201d he points out. So, Farid wants to develop another skill, learning how to teach. \u201cI\u2019m preparing a cartoon academy to teach arts through Facebook. I also want to do workshops for children teaching caricatures. Inviting other artists to participate,\u201d he said, adding that the intends to increase the interest for the arts in his home country.<\/p>\n

Translated by Guilherme Miranda<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rodrigo Rodrigues\/Arab Brazilian Chamber<\/div>\n
Thais Sousa \/ ANBA<\/div>\n
Samar Kamel<\/div>\n
Thais Sousa \/ ANBA<\/div>\n
Thais Sousa \/ ANBA<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Egyptian Culture Festival in S\u00e3o Paulo presented works by four artists from that country. Despite different styles and experiences, three of them explore common themes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2324,"featured_media":253582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3066],"tags":[9803,3404,9534,10398,10352,10395,9621,10396,10394,10351,10353,10397],"class_list":{"0":"post-253714","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-society","8":"tag-egypt-en","9":"tag-belgium","10":"tag-brazil-en","11":"tag-cairo-en","12":"tag-caricatura","13":"tag-caricature","14":"tag-dubai-en","15":"tag-egyptian-artworks","16":"tag-main-artists","17":"tag-obras-egipcias","18":"tag-papiro","19":"tag-papryus"},"wps_subtitle":"The Egyptian Culture Festival in S\u00e3o Paulo presented works by four artists from that country. Despite different styles and experiences, three of them explore common themes.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2324"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}