SOUAD'S FIRST SOLO KENYAN SHOW

 EGYPTIAN FEMALE STORYTELLER CREATES SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE ALL HER OWN

                                                               Souad Abdel Rassoul

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Egyptian artist Dr Souad Abdel Rassoul has been exhibiting her artworks in Nairobi since 2014. Yet her current show entitled ‘Behind the River’ at the Circle Art Gallery through July 23rd is her first solo presentation.

Two of her past exhibitions have been with her husband, the acclaimed Sudanese painter Salah El Mur. But Souad is a powerful painter in her own right. She is also one whose style and artistic statements transcend national bounds.

                                                                     Souad's Man Tree

She is a storyteller whose art, she admits, is highly personal. Yet for many women critics, ‘the personal is political.’ That concept seems applicable to much of Souad’s art. A work like ‘Bull Eyes’ exudes powerful feelings as the woman is being aggressively assaulted by a man-like bull. The image could be autobiographic or allegorical. Either way it speaks about the horror and trauma millions of women must feel when abused physically by men.

In ‘Dreamers’, Souad says she wished to commemorate the men and women who died trying to rescue those who had been trapped by the massive bomb blasts that exploded last year in Beirut, Lebanon. The artist herself is based in Cairo, but her feelings of empathy run deep, and as far and wide as the river Nile that she has a life-long affinity for.

 Whether alluding to a bull, a reptile or fish, Souad’s paintings ‘speak’ in a visual language that is all her own. Highly symbolic, they have been said to reflect a blend of the figurative and abstract. Yet the other ar  Souad with her Nile Crocodiles'

It’s apparent in a powerful piece like ‘Crocodile Nile’ where the woman is seated regally on a rock inside her beloved River Nile. But she is encircled by crocodiles who look strangely man-like and menacing. And looking more carefully, it would seem she has no way out.

                                                     Souad with her Nile Crocodiles

In the video that accompanies the 28 paintings in Souad’s show, she refutes the claim that she is a feminist artist. Yet she admits that much of her art is inspired by her personal experiences, including her emotions, thoughts, and feelings. Her quest for freedom beyond the social constraints, limiting traditions, and peer pressures that she feels in her society are also apparent in her art.

Yet so are the subtle indicators of resistance to those constraints. They are apparent in pieces like ‘Man Tree’ and ‘Like a Lonely Owl’. In both paintings, the woman stands alone, apparently being judged by the men whose heads are bobbing on the tree branches above. What is radical about both works is her daring exposure of the inequitable relationship between the genders.

                                                          Souad's Like a LonelyOwl 

Yet her art is encrypted in intriguing, often enigmatic symbols, as in the painting ‘Like a Single Pomegranate’. Seated at a roundtable are a dozen men deliberating on one pomegranate. “For me, the pomegranate symbolizes the woman,” discloses Souad to DN Style and Art. The men are apparently discussing how to control the destiny of the fruit. “The pomegranate is one of the most delicious and highly sought-after fruits. It’s also a symbol of fertility and abundance,” she adds, suggesting the men’s desire to control the fruit and all its seeds may not be quite so easy.

Perhaps the painting that best reflects the common condition of most women living in a patriarchal world is ‘I have mouths that never talk.” How many women have been taught from childhood to be ‘seen but not heard?’ But here is Souad (who has her Ph.D in art history) calling out the absurdity and waste of keeping women entrapped in silence when they are intelligent, insightful human beings.

“For me, the woman is the bearer of life,” she says. It’s a sentiment best expressed in a piece like ‘Crossing the river’ in which the woman carries a beautiful potted green plant as she walks through water we assume is the Nile. “I grew up living near the Nile. The river is sacred to us,” she adds.  Her soulful connection with the Nile is manifest in another painting simply entitled ‘The River’. In it a woman is enigmatically clad in a transparent gown (as are nearly all the women in her paintings). She looks blissful as she drifts alone in a small boat, holding only a flower possibly symbolizing woman’s fertility and her oneness with the river.

                                                                         Souad's Bull Eyes

Souad knows she is fortunate having the ability to express her deeper feelings and affinities through her art. One affinity she has is for the artist Salah whom she married. Knowing her as a visual storyteller, one can assume her painting ‘First Date’ is about her first outing with him. Her own awkwardness is apparent but it seems to lead to another occasion when the two are ‘Waiting’. In this piece, the two are seated at an appropriate social distance and also separated by a tree that could easily symbolize a positive image of future possibilities and growth. She later asks herself ‘Who is this man?’ but she doesn’t initially have an answer, only ‘Confusion’. But then she finally paints ‘Love I” of him and ‘Love II’ of herself, as if theirs might actually lead to a ‘Happily ever after’.

But in ‘Behind the River’, that possibility is consistently counter-balances bliss with the way women are still living in an inequitable patriarchal system where they must continue to claim their freedom, which she does through her art.