Portfolio : Rania Fouad
Short Biography : 1998 Graduated from Faculty of Fine Arts Painting Department . 2008 Granted Monbukagakusho scholarship For Graduate studies. 2009-2012 Studied in Japan (Tsukuba University –school of Art & Design ) 2010 Art Residency in la Capella - Barcelona . 2014 Artist Residency in Japan (Tokyo Wonder Site) , 2015 Artist Residency in Finland ( Äkkigalleria) 2015 2016 Artist Residency in Poland (THE CENTRE FOR CREATIVE ACTIVITIES in Ustka) Currently teaches painting in Faculty of Fine Arts and American University .
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Project no.1 Jizō on the wall (2012)
It all started when something has shaken up my habitual patterns. This state of being in-between, no longer able to get my old comfort from the outside but not yet dwelling in a continual sense of equanimity and warmth. I tried to be at peace with the open-ended tender place called in between , comfortable with uncertainty. By not knowing, not hoping to know, and not acting like I know ,I planned -over the course of several years- try do projects that tackle this state of mind in different ways .
Jizō on the wall is the simple idea of introducing one motif that looks out of context ,coming from a different culture (Japan) into the streets of Cairo . I intentionally worked with an inaccessible image like that of Jizō, (a deity in Japanese mythology) . I printed and painted its figure on the walls and trees of different neighborhoods .For painting I employed a time-consuming process based on the techniques used in Nihonga (Japanese style painting ). I wanted to be there as long as possible . Over days and days, I created small, intricate images of Jizō.... I knew it would be potentially problematic for many people being a figure that is outside both Christian and Muslim theology. There was a lot of misunderstanding and misinterpretations , but this was one thing I wanted to be part of my work as well. Time spent on the streets was more important than anything . A video camera was turned on to record casual interactions . With these recordings I wanted to create a freewheeling film based on improvisation , spontaneity , and unpredictability. Film in which nothing is particularly desired and thus all outcomes can be perfect .
Jizō on the wall was first screened in Rawabet art Space ( Townhouse Gallery )on the 5th of June (2012 ) then in Gallery Misr June 2013 , VII Tashkent International Biennale of Contemporary Art October 2013 and Tokyo Wonder site January 2014.
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Statement
"Living there I had the feeling I existed in 2 different places ..my mind was going back and forth. In my paintings I was working as if drawing lines between here and there. I borrowed motifs related to Japanese culture. I used it in a different context , reflecting on the situation of being in between . Here I continue to do the same , not on canvases however, but on the trees and on the walls of the streets. I used the photographs I have been taking of Jizō since 2 years when I lived in Japan . An old Japanese deity whose statues are common sight in roadsides and grave yards . In Japanese mythology they say he protects women , lonely travelers and abandoned children (aborted fetuses and the miscarried). I called him God of small things like in the book of Arundhati Roi. In Cairo I put Jizō on the walls and trees of slum areas... Places of a growing population that has been abandoned –for so long- by others . My plan is to go astray , stay in one place for some time and go with the figure imprinted, painted, gilded on the worn out walls ,vulnerable to erosion and hundred inevitable layers of misinterpretations.............. . While working Jizō was destroyed many times so he never really stayed in the street for so long .. It was sad but I could understand . The effort done was not to please myself by leaving a nice durable artwork in the middle of the street but to stay open to the casual chances that might occur while I am painting it.
– جيزو على الجدار أستعير من المكان موتيفات ترتبط بثقافته و أدرجها فى سياق مغاير أنسجه من تأمالت. " أرسم بأعمالى خطوطا وهمية بين " هنا " و "هناك، كنت أحيا هناك وأشعر بانتمائى لمكانين مختلفين .ما بين بين . فقط أستعيض عن الكانفاس بالجدران فى الشوارع، اآلن بهذا العمل أكرر الشئ ذاته بجواره يترك المارون دمى صغيرة و.أعتمد فى عملى على مجموعة من الصور التقطها لجيزو ؛ ذلك الكيان اليابانى القديم الذى تعد تماثيله مشهدا مألوفا على قارعة الطريق و فى الجبانات .قارورات بالستيكية لمشروب لبنى مسكر ذكرنى هذا بعنوان كتاب كنت قرأته للكاتبة الهندية.. ( وفقا لالساطير البعيدة كان جيزو معنيا بحماية الر حال الوحيد و بحماية النساء و االطفال الذى تم التخلى عنهم ) بطريقة أو بأخرى " . أرونداتى روى "رب االشياء الصغيرة و فى ثنايا العشوائيات و الحارات رقيقة الحال التى تخلى عن اهلها "االخرون" أطلقت جيزو على جدران بالية و تركته هناك عرضه لمرور الزمن و عيون، االن فى قلب القاهرة حيث أسير .المارة التى تطمسه بسؤال مبتور و ذرات مترسبة من اإللغاز وعدم القدرة على التواصل
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Three prints of my JizĹ? -photographs transferred on canvas covered with shell powder ,perfume , yarn , sand and glue . 45cmx 45 cm each. Exhibited in Misr Gallery with video
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Project no.2 - In Between
Project produced in Tokyo Wonder Site Aoyama:Creator-in-Residence (7January ~ 18 February 2014 ) . Please mention this when you talk/write about the project and if possible use the logo here
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Work consisted of : - 4 paintings ( 73 x 61 cm ) each - White canvas checkered with silver leaf on which video recordings from were projected : Recordings of weekly Friday demonstrations in Cairo year 2013 Recordings I did from inside Horyuji temple - Japan 2014 . Recordings I did of the Tokyo demonstrations -Japan 2014 Recordings of Japan’s on-line streaming earthquake map .
-An installation of patterns stitched on muslin Statement: Between Ah and Oum uttered by the two muscular guardians standing at the entrance of Buddhist temple lies a kaleidoscope of life visualizations.
August 2011 When I entered the Zen garden of Daisen –in temple I thought I am encountering an installation that allows for interesting interlocution of sign system . Rocks are arranged on the intricate spiral patterns of gravel . In this space, a certain connection has been made between "form" and "imagination". Signs belonged to it more than it has ever belonged to the real world. There the rock is not a rock anymore ; the articulation and the montage of the elements within the space provided it with new identities .Ones that changed across the garden according to the context . A rock was a mountain , a waterfall , a river , a turtle , a crane , a cow , an island and an ocean . The whole space worked as a receptive canvas , ready to host elusive visions and generate images that record life experiences . Confronted with such scenery - I knew I had to exert a proper effort to decode the signs.
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January 2014 In my mind I need a Zen garden .. I need to put things into order . Find clearness in obscurity, create comprehensible form for incomprehensible situations I encounter every day. Wondering if there is a system -that functions – simmering underneath ;I sat in the temple confronting the checkered patterns of Mirei Shigemori , stitching a grid of my own .
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Recorded performance stitching grids in Tofukuji temple
Mirei Shigemori’s checkered garden
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Above: An installation of patterns stitched on muslin ..
I created grids and geometrical patterns as part of my performance in Tofokuji temple . Grids are the underlying structure of design process. It generate the spatial structure that help regulate the order of patterns , mediating between two poles of order and diversity
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Video recordings projected on checkered canvas
Project was exhibited in : -Japan Feb 2014 in Tokyo Wonder Site-Italy
March - April 2014 in Accademia D’Egitto in Roma /“ Carnevale delle Arti Visive Contemporanee”
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Project no.3 Haiku A rotoscope painting animation project partially developed in workshop called Generator (from September 15 to October 31st ) supported by Medrar for Contemporary Art and Swiss Arts Council in Cairo (Pro Helvetia) . Haiku refers to a Japanese poetic form used to juxtapose two ideas, create a leap between two parts by bringing about what has been called an "internal comparison." Link on Vimeo : https://vimeo.com/119625681 Passward : jisei
Time of production : 2014 Duration : 01:53
Synopsis Hana to mishi Yuki wa kinouzo Moto no mizu.
The snow of yesterday that fell like cherry blossoms is water once again.
Film starts with a beautiful Japanese jisei haiku poem written by Gozan in the 18th century .Like the haiku , the film is an allegorical meditation on death. But also a layered interpretation of three interlinked narratives : an eastern haiku poem ,a western musical composition and a moving picture . All revolving around the same theme: The fragile transitory stage that lies between life and death . Swallowing pain , struggling, blooming within one's mind even if the body is withering . Film Structure: Based on word (image) /sound interrelated structure in haiku poems . Haiku poems have the 5-7-5 sound structure ; that is to say there are five syllables in the first line ,seven in the second ,five again in the third . Borders of sound do not particularly coincide with borders of words . Sound existed prior to the word (and thus to the image ) ,its meanings and its logic , completely liberated from its tyranny . Similarly in my work sound from Schubert's quartet was primarily used as autonomous units that existed prior to the work itself . Within three sound units/sections , images in the film seem to recur and repeat ( section one ) , settle in (section two ) or stream beyond confined borders (section three) . One doesn't know how the narrative starts nor how it will end and there is no solid story within each section . Film screened in the following venues -Beirut Animated (October 2015) - Wekalet Behna in Alexandria (August 2015) - Rencontres de l’Image / Institut français d'Egypte . (May 2015) ( competition : awarded Jury Prize) - Venice International video art, experimental dance and performance festival (November 2014) -Medrar 6th Cairo Video Festival (November 2014)
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Still images from Haiku animation
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Project no.4 Her Space
Series of paintings I did for women to explore and express their inner realities . 2011-2012
It was part of my study in Japan ..Mainly I was interested in
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- Appropriation of traditional and cultural motifs. - Shifting Borders between cities, identities, societies and cultures. -Observing and reconstructing new meanings based on the way things might appear to us when set out of its usual context. -Create art works overlaid with the contour line of experience. Mainly my encounter with the other - Visualizing inner spaces into which people might reside and refuge.
Mama Transfer print and acrylic paint on canvas mounted on wood 130.3 h x 97 w
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Oil on wooden panel - 120cm height x 91 cm width
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Transfer print ,acrylic ,oil paint , silver leaf . 162x162cm
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Oil paint and acrylic on wooden panel. 182x 97 cm .
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Oil and tempera on canvas mounted on wooden panel . 130.3x 130.3 cm
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Acrylic and transfer print on canvas .130.3 x 97 cm .
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Transfer print,washi paper and masking tape on canvas .53Ă—45.5 cm
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Project 5 – Seeing ( work related to my thesis in Japan studying the influence of Zen esthetics on contemporary artists )
One work consisting of 3 panels ,Left and right panels 162x97cm , Middle panel 162x162cm Oil painting ,tempera, and transfer print Visualizing a state of mind Long time ago the monkey figure appeared in Zen paintings as psychological metaphor to express a mind state. Images of monkey in the forest alluded to that of a mind that jumps from a thought to a thought like a monkey jumping from one tree to another .
Photo of the work published in Synopses of Master's Thesis.- University of Tsukuba -school of Art and Design .
Work exhibited in Tsukuba Fine Art museum /Japan.
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Project 6 Visualizing Wu Wei ( works related to my thesis in Japan)
Wu-Wei is an important concept in Taoism and eventually Japanese Zen ..It literally means “non-action or non-doing.” I used a sumi-e brush , ink stick , and a Japanese paper (washi ) to improvise a few ink strokes, visualizing the concept of Wu Wei . In Sumi-e it is interesting to see how little one needs to interfere in order to have the work done . It all depends on the washi , the paper..on the way it allows ink to move slowly along its fibers , naturally creating delicate translucent edges around each form . I put my drawings against the light and that is how the thing was presented .
( Wu Wei ( الووـ وي و منه فى مذهب الزن إلى خاصية " الالفعل " و هى خاصية تترك بموجبها األشياء لتنجز بطريقة طبيعية و تلقائية دون الحاجة إلى بذل جهد, هو ذلك النزوع الصوفي فى مذهب الطاو . مبالغ فيه .) كان من السهل التعبير عن هذه الخاصية باستخدام االحبار و الرسم بها على الطريقة اليابانية (سومى –إى لم أر من قبل نوعا من الورق، الواشى يشبه ضوء الشمس نفسه. ذلك أن الواشى ليس مجرد ورق. على ورق الواشى قمت بإرتجال االشكال البسيطة ثم عرضها باستخدام إضاءة خلفية . يعكس الضوء بهذا الشكل الرائع
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Project 7 – Parallel Architectures (work in process) This Project Received Fund From AFAC ..please mention this in case you talk about it and if possible include the following logo
-A rotoscope painting animation film based on the crises and atrophy of interpersonal relations between the self and the other. -The film is a non -static narrative of the real and the imaginary ,juxtaposes scenes from film archive with scenes from real -time documentary video shooting with a sense of visual poetry
- The working process is mainly experimental , crafted through individual work as well as a series of workshops that allow for people’s intervention in the proposed narrative
Painted frames from section 2 in film parallel architectures based on Pina Bausch’s work “ Rite of the spring ” (Le Sacré du Printemps )
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Painted frames from section one in film parallel architectures , (now exhibited in GYPSUM gallery )
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A frame in another sequence based on film Metropolis (science-fiction drama film directed by Fritz Lang)- Oil paint on paper canvas
A sequence based on staged sessions ( real time documentary) *Photo by Geith El Amin
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Project 8 Disconnected narrative Collaborative work, Rania Fouad and Faiza Youssef Mans没r exhibited in Mahmud Mukhtar museum in Cairo (2013) and Akki galleria, in Jyv盲skyl盲 (Finland ) (2015)..
In Siwa Women entrust their stories in the dresses they stitch .The dress becomes a witness of innumerable memories of joy and sorrow .The woven lines narrate the experiences and emotions of its creator . It compromises real time documentary as well as imaginations all transferred into rustic patterns . Disconnected Narratives is a project I did with my mother Faiza Mans没r using embroidery based on the detached and shredded stories I have been telling her on my return from Siwa oasis .
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Project 9 Alternate Journal
Painting Albrecht Durer on daily bases as an alternate way of tracing my ever-changing self . An early project .. A set of 60 portraits done in 2004 over two months with oil paint on cardboard . 29x20.5 cm each
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