WOMEN ARTISTS

The visionary female artists of the Arab world. Cont'd.

 

Jamal's strong reddish vibrant colors reflect painful emotions and occupy the larger part of her compositions. Yet, the carefully and well positioned  and constantly interactive fragments of light and transparent shadows created with yellow, orange and pale white transmigrate us to a state of enchantment and a higher dimension of hope. The technique she used in covering  the perimeter of her paintings with darker and severe colors, leaving the inner center to radiate through delicately composed rectangular and carefully disbursed smaller shapes, clearly indicates a quasi perfect mastery of esthetic equilibrium and colors. Looking at her “City on Fire” gives me the feeling as If I were following a child holding a candle in both hands and holding on it with his palms  with fear and care, strolling in the darkness. And once, I loose his path, and once her gets ahead of me living me in the dark, only a trembling and hesitant light slips away from between his fingers. It looks as if his hands are one fire, because the only thing my eyes could see is the shadowy fragments of dissipating light in the darkness. In this moment, one’s only see illuminated fragile hands floating over dust of light. This is what I feel and what I see upon looking at the edges and center of her painting. It is more than a city on fire, it is our youth, children, life and sorrow burning and we are a part of the blaze.”

 

2- Ivonne a-Baki

A Lebanese artist born in Ecuador, A-Baki trained at the University of Beirut in architecture and served as Artist-in-Residence at Dudley House, Harvard University. Many of her paintings are on permanent display at such institutions as the presidential palaces of Lebanon and Ecuador, as well as in various international museums. Selected solo exhibitions include Keith Green Gallery, New York in 1988; Museo Nacional Benjamin Carrión, Quito, Ecuador in 1989; Dudley House, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. in 1990; Whig Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. in 1990; and The Cathedral of St. John The Divine; New York in 1992

 

3- ETHEL ADNAN

Adnan studied philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris, the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard. She taught philosophy of art at Dominican College of San Rafael, California, and has presented courses, classes, and lectures at over forty universities and colleges throughout the United States. Adnan creates oils, ceramics, and tapestry. She has also written more than ten books of poetry and fiction, including Sitt Marie-Rose, which has been translated into six languages. She lives in California, Paris, and Lebanon. Her selected solo exhibitions include: Marin County Civic Center, San Rafael, CA; Galerie Samy Kinge, Paris; Kufa Gallery, London; Gallery 50 x 70, Beirut, Lebanon. Her selected group exhibitions include: UNESCO, Paris; Midiathèque, Les Mureaux, France; L'Atelier, Rabat, Morocco; Musée de L'Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Forces of Change: Artists of the Arab World, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. Painting above: Nelly’s Poem.