Zeinab al-Seginy is one Egyptian female artist whose works have special focus on women and children. Mother and child represent the main pillars of Seginy’s art, her brush rendering almost tangible the innocence, love and generosity that govern this relationship.
The most recent exhibition of Seginy’s art opened on 15 December at the Zamalek Art Gallery in Cairo and runs till 5 January. It showcases 50 of her early work of mother-child paintings and sketches in pencil, pen, and pastel.
The artworks were initially studies for Seginy’s larger, more colourful paintings. Her studies capture that moment when her idea came to life; much like a photograph, capturing the essentials of her subject, the overall form and perspective but with an extra abundance of affection and sensitivity. She tends to use calm colours and backgrounds with decorative elements; special symbols of her concern about women.
Seginy’s draughtsmanship aptitude is impressive; her art has become her very own trademark, a unique style that reveals elements of human nature. It is simultaneously simple and complex, appearing simple because of the abbreviated lines, yet complex because it is evident that it took the artist’s unsparing practice and ingenuity to convey her impressions and feelings.
Born in Cairo in 1930, Zeinab al-Seginy graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in 1956. She earned a PhD in Art Education from Helwan University in 1978. Seginy’s art has become her very own trademark, a unique style that reveals elements of human nature. The setting is always Egypt at its most raw and most beautiful: The Nile, the desert mountains, or the sea.
Seginy describes her work as “a spiritual intermingling with nature, that draws its source from Coptic icons with their adoration and reverence, alongside the wonders of Islamic miniatures.”
Watani International
23 December 2019