Souad Abdelrassoul: Unstable Worlds: Circle Art Gallery
"Loneliness is not as terrifying as you think. I was closer and more honest with myself when I was there, to get rid of the hustle and bustle of excess things and people. You become above everything except this loneliness I am now alone, I am now free."
In the struggle and catharsis of making over the past year, Souad drew closer to herself, her work and purpose, foregrounding relationships with animals and more broadly the natural world for companionship, the final painting completed for the exhibition Safe Nap, encapsulating this period.
Lives and works in Cairo
"Loneliness is not as terrifying as you think. I was closer and more honest with myself when I was there, to get rid of the hustle and bustle of excess things and people. You become above everything except this loneliness I am now alone, I am now free."
In a year of rupture and dislocation in the world and in her personal and relational life, Souad turned inwards into a solitary studio practice. From this intense period of solitude and self-reflection, Unstable Worlds emerges, featuring paintings made between 2022 and 2024.
In the struggle and catharsis of making over the past year, Souad drew closer to herself, her work and purpose, foregrounding relationships with animals and more broadly the natural world for companionship, the final painting completed for the exhibition Safe Nap, encapsulating this period.
Souad Abdelrassoul (Egyptian, b. 1974). Her practice spans various media, incorporating drawing, painting, sculpture and graphic design. Working between the abstract and figurative, she intertwines human, animal and vegetal forms, believing we are all intrinsically connected to the earth. Tree-like figures with branching veins and arteries, and giant insect-like creatures, merge on her canvases to remind the viewer of the vital bond between our internal lives and the exterior world we live in.
Adopting a surrealist touch, Abdelrassoul’s paintings exalt in the feminine and the emotional. They explore the idea of the modern woman, informed by her own experiences of living within a patriarchal society. Many of her motifs address these issues, whilst also making reference to artists and practices that she admires. Reflecting on her experiences as a mother, Abdelrassoul draws attention to the ways women evolve and adapt in oppressive environments. Often using familiar myths and legends, she paints stories through her figures that question the roles women hold in society and cultural history in disruptive and thought-provoking ways. By reconceptualizing perceptions of space, she repurposes notions of form, science and nature into strikingly personal configurations.
Souad Abdelrassoul graduated with a BFA in 1998 from El Minya University and in 2005 completed her master’s degree in History of Art. In 2012 she completed her PhD in Modern Art History. Since 1998 she has exhibited frequently in group and solo exhibitions in Cairo, as well as in Nairobi, Beirut and the USA. Her recent exhibitions include: Like a Single Pomegranate, Almas Foundation at the Fitzrovia Gallery, London, 2023, A Never Ending Longing, Cromwell Place, London, 2022; Behind the River, Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi, 2021; East African Encounters, Cromwell Place, London, 2021. She has exhibited at international art fairs in London, Dubai, Marrakech and at The Armory Show in New York. In 2022 her painting The Magician (2021) was acquired by the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the USA. She is also represented in the collection of the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts, USA. Abdelrassoul features in 300 Great Women Painters published in 2022 by Phaidon Press and in 2023, had a monograph published by Almas Foundation accompanying the exhibition Like a Single Pomegranate. In 2022 her work was commissioned for the facade of the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre in London. In 2023 she had solo exhibitions in Cairo and in Dakar and she was a finalist in the Norval Sovereign Art Prize, Cape Town.
