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Culture
Exhibition
Mona El- Bayoumi:A pictorial archaeologist of the beautiful Egypt
By Irene MOSALLI | Saturday, October 5, 2013

"To build up, you have to dig deep," said a Mongolian proverb. In Digging out in the tumult and theturmoil of her native Egypt, the artist Mona el- Bayoumi accessed the transcendence.

The results of her research, grouped under the title " Dig: Reflections on Egypt," are at the Syra Gallery in Washington. A diptych shows, at the foot of housing tight against each other, a dense crowd that gradually turns red. Its title,Warming, is a harbinger of great tension. Red also features an anxious female face. Sands offer disorders Visions Landscapes the zigzag, the lotus flowers fade and lean, and the sky is a mustard color. The artist explains:

" Digging is my cry for what is happening in Egypt. As an Egyptian living in the United States, the various icons of my country continually arise in my work. It is said that Egypt is the " mother of the world " and many feel attached to it because of our past. Today it is open to all those who await the "final" that would happen after several acts scene. Following what was happening in my country during the last month, I was thrown in different directions, as a spectator and artist. And I found myself trying to handle a variety of colors that reflect anger, but also hope and optimism. I constantly went from one key to another, according to the reversals of situations and emotions. "

Optimism continually returned under her brushes because she could extract the existence of the best. Thus, treated in light green a portrait expresses serenity and parallels that of a woman, Red concern. Furthermore, the lotus flower recovers and resumes its blue color Egypt and mustard sky turns to a range of pink and purple. The highlight of the series is a large canvas with bright colors, called Dig. She is a slender woman bent, rummaging her present and her past, her hair falling forward in the manner of Pharaonicheaddresses. Living reminiscence of an unforgettable past, also revisited in a painting’s title. She needs to reign again: here she is like an ancient Egyptian statue, whose hair is shaped out from theCairo crowd. Compositions, one more remarkable than the other thatshe worked as an archaeologist pictorial. 

"These famous images of ancient Egypt remain timeless, says Mona el- Bayoumi. Today's artists have reworked and exposed in the streets their expression of their resentment over what is happening in the country. "

Born in Alexandria, but established since the age of five in the United States where she has grown up and made her artistic training, Mona el- Bayoumi has not failed to make several trips to her native country and other Arabscountries. Thus the acquisition of a sunny palette, enhanced by the vibrant color of the American 60s and 70s. Besides her numerous exhibitions, she has established a socio- artistic bridge between the United States and Egypt in 2005. She made photographs of workers in the federal capital, supplemented by abstract paintings and exhibited in Cairo. To highlight the similarities of the working class in the world. In another, she signed Open Mind, a painting where she fillsa human brain with religious symbols. That is another facet of her exploratory aesthetic. read article in french


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