Rania Khallaf engages with the spirit of natural joy The joy of the feast is the title of an exhibition held this week at the Press Syndicate in Adli Street, Downtown Cairo. The exhibition by the young painter Reem Azmi is plainly a call for joy. Azmi's works always depict this joyful side of life: butterflies, cats, balloons, and natural objects are her most common subjects. "The idea of depicting the spirit of the feast was very appealing to me," Azmi says. "The idea flashed into my mind in the summer when I came back from France, where I took part in the fourth Brioude biennale for watercolour. So I decided to do all the paintings in watercolour, and since then I have fallen in love with the medium." While some artists prefer the shock effect in their paintings, Azmi opted for joy. "I am very much influenced by surrealism, the school that adopts the effect of ugliness and shock, to stir questions in the mind of the viewer. However, my job here is slightly different, since I prefer to create this surprise or astonishment on the face of the viewer. I believe people have lost the ability to be surprised about anything because of their accumulated disappointments and the speed in today's rhythm of life. "However," she goes on, "pushing this surprise on the face of the viewer is not any easy task." Instead of sadness or weird objects, Azmi's paintings depict happy faces of women, men and children enjoying a picnic and having fun. Animals are not excluded from the scene. Women are the main subject of Azmi's work: women flying in the air, resting their elbows on a passing cloud, or childishly holding an aubergine; while children and men play a minor role. "I believe that women are the most beautiful thing created on earth," she says. However, she is not into painting nude models. "I am a bit conservative and childish; there are others who excel in this trend," she commented. Azmi has not studied art in an academic institution. She studied the French language at university and graduated in 1994. In 1995 she gained a diploma in animation from the Martel graphics centre in Cairo. "This has helped me to break academic rules freely, something that most art school graduates are not able to do," she says. Her work is described by critics as primitive or naïve, and this is the secret behind her stunning paintings and colours. In December, Azmi will be the guest of honour at the Monaco International Film Festival's seventh annual Angel Film Awards (AFA). After participating in many group exhibitions, Azmi held her first private exhibition in 2005. It was entitled Noah Archaic, and was shown in Al-Ahram Art Gallery. Three other private exhibitions have followed. Her last private exhibition held two years ago, entitled Magicians, consisted of surrealist depictions of cats and butterflies. The 40 paintings in this one-week exhibition are divided into two sections; the first on the theme of a call for joy, the other section on a call for liberty. Azmi says the second section of small paintings, or miniatures, are somewhat similar to Asian art works, depicting women as the source of imagination and the supernatural. "I believe that my mission is not to reflect my suffering or pain, but to portray joy and the human desire to celebrate life," she says. Perhaps the cheerful spirit of the artist and her paintings will also ease the tension that prevails the syndicate these days, caused by the coming board elections which are due to take place next week.
