IN her colours and lines, you can find entire worlds of feeling, passion and life. The hidden meaning in her paintings makes you contemplate and interact. In her latest exhibition "Contemplation " Interaction", Zeinab Khalil shows 60 paintings. Some feature contemplation, the kind we feel on being silent. Some others are about interaction. Khalil's paintings have a special and mysterious flavour. They are abstract and experimental and contain a very deep meaning. "When I start a painting, I usually begin with spontaneous freehand strokes on the canvas. Then my mind follows and the flow of free strokes is accompanied by a sense of composition, matching passion with logic," Zeinab Khalil explained. "I don't make sketches for my paintings first. I just paint," she adds. "I seek to minimise the number of elements, thus approaching abstraction." One can notice the strong presence of women in several of her paintings. There is a connection between women and triangle. One of her paintings shows women gathering in a place with their features being blurred, but the three pyramids in the background are very clear. The pyramids make us notice the place, which is Egypt. Another painting shows the shadows of two lovers holding each other, while the pyramids appear in the background again. In another painting there is a woman's face, and the triangle appears in small sailing boats. "The mythology and glory of the triangle have always attracted me. It is a central shape in my paintings. I don't know why it attracts me," she notes. "The woman also plays a central role in my paintings. She symbolises the essence of existence and continuity of life. I paint her in all her different moods of contemplation and interaction," she comments. Khalil's colours are very bold. Some paintings have a festive mood and convey an invitation to life. "Acrylic paints are the reason," she explains. "They are always bright and bold. I like using them in my paintings about interaction; they just create the mood I want," she adds. Khalil graduated from the Faculty of Arts, English Department, Cairo University in 1962. Then she studied art at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad from 1975 to 1978. Later she joined the Egypt's official Middle East News Agency and got promoted to the position of assistant editor-inchief. She retired in 2003. Throughout her career, she continued to study in Cairo, with prominent artists like Sabri Ragheb, Moustafa el-Razzaz and Farghali Abdel Hafeez. She joined el-Razzaz's atelier in 1983. Khalil has participated in many exhibitions since 1978: The Salon, The Spring, national expositions, small exhibitions and shows in well-known Egyptian galleries, in addition to many charitable exhibitions.
