Al-Sageny captures the world of girls and women
CAIRO: Artist Zeinab Al-Sageny is moved by life around her, the hustle and bustle of Egypt and the people. And the 66-year-old painter has seen the people and the land change throughout her lifetime.
“The idea of Egypt, our land, our social situation, its meaning . life is around us, it is what moves me, says Al-Sageny, who is also a professor of design at the faculty of art education in Helwan University.
Al-Sageny’s latest exhibition at Zamalek Art Gallery is indeed a celebration of life – there is a vivacity that springs to the fore in her paintings. The oil and acrylic images on canvas explore the world of girls and women in this ancient land. Some are happy, some are sad, some are in the fields, others on the beach . but what they all have in common is their strongly Egyptian appearance, with tanned skin and curly brown hair, their bare feet, plain dresses and the look in their eyes.
The starry eyed girls in the picture have a distinctive look of fear that is hard to miss. Al-Sageny explains that it’s not the kind of fear that makes one cower, “it’s the kind of fear that will make them alert like they are waiting for something that might harm them.
It is difficult to go to an exhibition of Al-Sageny’s and miss the fish. She uses it symbolically in many of her paintings.
The mother and daughter relationship is also a common theme in her paintings.
The room is dominated with two colors: white and orange, as well as lots of greens and blues. But the artist does not consider her use of color symbolical; color doesn’t tell a story it only supports it, she explains.
Notable features of Al-Sageny’s style are the Egyptian folkloric and Pharaonic art elements imbedded in her simplistic modern work. The folklore comes from her own childhood, the Pharaonic from her studies. Al-Sageny studies ancient Egyptian art while pursuing her master’s degree.
“In anything ancient Egyptian any part is a masterpiece … If you take the feet alone it’s a masterpiece with great simplicity, she says in praise of our ancestors’ skill. Yet she feels that she should not draw too much from Pharaonic art, as art should be relative to the time period in which it is created. She believes that one should learn from it and use it in the context of today’s equation.
The technique Al-Sageny uses relies on her vivid memory. She likes to live, to see, to smell, to feel and then to paint, emerging with work that moves her.
One of her famous paintings is of a woman on a tahoona (a large grinder), a machine that has been out of use for decades. She remembers it from over 50 years ago when she saw her sister using it. In the painting she captures the expression of her sister and the details of the machine, all from memory.
More recently she was watching news about the last bombing in Sharm El-Sheikh, and immediately got up and drew a painting of a girl hugging a white dove. This is one of the paintings included in the current exhibition.
Al-Sageny is famous for only drawing females. There are no men present in any of her works. She laughs at this, and explains that it was not done on purpose initially. “In the very beginning I drew both boys and girls until my daughter Iman was born. First I drew Iman and her friends as little children, but as she grew, so did the girls in my painting.
Actually the curly haired girls that inhabit her paintings do in a way represent Iman, “before she goes to the hair dresser, her mother jokes. She captures the natural messy look of children when they wake, a moment every mother holds dear.
Zamalek Art Gallery 11 Brazil St., Zamalek (02) 735 124010:30 am-9:00 pm
