The Beirut Art Fair 9th edition, which ran from September 20 until September 23, 2018, at Seaside Arena in Beirut, showcased many exhibitions of Lebanese, middle eastern and international artists. Prestige selected works from Egyptian and Sudanese artists who were part of this cultural manifestation entitled: «New Horizons».
Soad Abdel Rasoul
Soad Abdel Rasoul lives and works in Cairo. She graduated in 1998 from Fine Arts, completed her masters in History of Art in 2005, and finished her Ph.D. in Modern Art History in 2012. Her work has been on display since 1998.
Soad Abdel Rasoul employs different mediums such as drawing, painting, graphic design, and collage to delineate densely detailed and interweaving human and geographical maps that help us to trace back our roots in the magnitude of the living world. By depicting metamorphosized figures, she doesn’t seek to visualize human physical beauty but attempts to reflect on the earth’s secrets and the connections between humans and the elements of existence like earth, metals, and plants. Tree-like figures, branching veins, and arteries, and monstrous insect-like characters merge on ink-color-mixed media canvases and collage busts to remind viewers of the vital bond between the interior of the human body and the exterior. By using fragments of maps and scientific illustrations of the human body, Soad Abdel Rasoul conceptualizes the way we perceive space and repurposes notions of body, science, and nature into something strikingly personal, which exalts the feminine, the emotional, the overgrowing natural, and the animalesque.
Salah el Mur
Born in Khartoum, Sudan, 1966. Studied in the Academy of Applied and Fine Arts in Khartoum where he graduated in 1989. El Mur is a painter, photographer and children’s books illustrator. He lives and works in Cairo. What distinguishes his work is a thorough study of the characteristics of Sudanese culture which is multi-ethnic with more than 100 tribes of different cultural characteristics in terms of language, music, and folklore for the use of decoration and colors in the public life of each.
El Mur work is so much influenced by his childhood where he opened his eyes on a father who makes fishnets and a mother who used to knit crochet designs in the outskirts of Khartoum, surrounded by large areas of greenery and flowing river.
From 2001 to 2018, El Mur exhibited individually and collectively in Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Lebanon, Spain, Egypt, USA, Canada, United Arab of Emirates and the British National Museum in the UK.
Recently a very important show was being held for him by Sharjah Art Museum under the name of “Fragrances of the Forest and Photos”, February 2018.
Qarm Qart
Qart’s Qarboush – creative works on the tarboush – offers multiple layers of meaning in the interpretation of the Egyptian past and presents. The tarboush as male headgear is now a historical relic. But what about its symbolic force of national and patriarchal privilege? The artist makes us ponder whether this privilege has gone with the tarboush itself as he ushers us into disquieting yet intriguing spaces.
I embroidered (hand-made) 30 tarboush illustrating 30 quotes taken from The Cairo Trilogy of Naguib Mahfouz.
I think the tarboush – away from the symbol it had in the past – is a beautiful hat that can be worn even today by the young. My Qarboush is a restyled tarboush.
