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Portfolio : Rania Fouad

Short Biography : 1998 Graduated from Faculty of Fine Arts Painting Department . 2008 Granted Monbukagakusho scholarship For Graduate studies. 2009-2012 Studied in Japan (Tsukuba University –school of Art & Design )

2010 Art Residency in la Capella - Barcelona .

2014 Artist Residency in Japan (Tokyo Wonder Site) , 2015 Artist Residency in Finland ( Äkkigalleria) 2015 2016 Artist Residency in Poland (THE CENTRE FOR CREATIVE ACTIVITIES in Ustka) Currently teaches painting in Faculty of Fine Arts and American University .

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Project no.1

Jizō on the wall (2012)

It all started when something has shaken up my habitual patterns.

This state of being in-between, no longer able to get my old comfort from the outside but not yet dwelling in a continual sense of

equanimity and warmth. I tried to be at peace with the open-ended tender place called in between , comfortable with uncertainty.

By not knowing, not hoping to know, and not acting like I know ,I planned -over the course of several years- try do projects that tackle

this state of mind in different ways .

Jizō on the wall is the simple idea of introducing one motif that looks out of context ,coming from a different culture (Japan) into the streets of Cairo . I intentionally worked with an inaccessible image like that of Jizō, (a deity in Japanese mythology) . I printed and painted its figure on the walls and trees of different neighborhoods .For painting I employed a time-consuming process based on the techniques used in Nihonga (Japanese style painting ). I wanted to be there as long as possible . Over days and days, I created small, intricate images of Jizō.... I knew it would be potentially problematic for many people being a figure that is outside both Christian and Muslim theology. There was a lot of misunderstanding and misinterpretations , but this was one thing I wanted to be part of my work as well. Time spent on the streets was more important than anything . A video camera was turned on to record casual interactions . With these recordings I wanted to create a freewheeling film based on improvisation , spontaneity , and unpredictability. Film in which nothing is particularly desired and thus all outcomes can be perfect .

Jizō on the wall was first screened in Rawabet art Space ( Townhouse Gallery )on the 5th of June (2012 ) then in Gallery Misr June 2013 , VII Tashkent International Biennale of Contemporary Art October 2013 and Tokyo Wonder site January 2014.

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Statement "Living there I had the feeling I existed in 2 different places ..my mind was going back and forth. In my paintings I was working as if drawing lines between here and there. I borrowed motifs related to Japanese culture. I used it in a different context , reflecting on the situation of being in between . Here I continue to do the same , not on canvases however, but on the trees and on the walls of the streets. I used the photographs I have been taking of Jizō since 2 years when I lived in Japan . An old Japanese deity whose statues are common sight in roadsides and grave yards . In Japanese mythology they say he protects women , lonely travelers and abandoned children (aborted fetuses and the miscarried). I called him God of small things like in the book of Arundhati Roi. In Cairo I put Jizō on the walls and trees of slum areas... Places of a growing population that has been abandoned –for so long- by others . My plan is to go astray , stay in one place for some time and go with the figure imprinted, painted, gilded on the worn out walls ,vulnerable to erosion and hundred inevitable layers of misinterpretations.............. . While working Jizō was destroyed many times so he never really stayed in the street for so long .. It was sad but I could understand .

The effort done was not to please myself by leaving a nice durable artwork in the middle of the street but to stay open to the casual

chances that might occur while I am painting it.

–جيزو على الجدار

ت بثقافته و أدرجها فى سياق مغاير أنسجه من تأمال كنت أحيا هناك وأشعر بانتمائى لمكانين مختلفين ، أرسم بأعمالى خطوطا وهمية بين " هنا " و "هناك" . أستعير من المكان موتيفات ترتبط

. ما بين بين

. اآلن بهذا العمل أكرر الشئ ذاته ، فقط أستعيض عن الكانفاس بالجدران فى الشوارع

صغيرة و فى الجبانات. بجواره يترك المارون دمى أعتمد فى عملى على مجموعة من الصور التقطها لجيزو ؛ ذلك الكيان اليابانى القديم الذى تعد تماثيله مشهدا مألوفا على قارعة الطريق و

. قارورات بالستيكية لمشروب لبنى مسكر

.. ذكرنى هذا بعنوان كتاب كنت قرأته للكاتبة الهندية )بطريقة أو بأخرى (وفقا لالساطير البعيدة كان جيزو معنيا بحماية الر حال الوحيد و بحماية النساء و االطفال الذى تم التخلى عنهم

. " أرونداتى روى "رب االشياء الصغيرة

بالية و تركته هناك عرضه لمرور الزمن و عيون االن فى قلب القاهرة حيث أسير ، و فى ثنايا العشوائيات و الحارات رقيقة الحال التى تخلى عن اهلها "االخرون" أطلقت جيزو على جدران

. المارة التى تطمسه بسؤال مبتور و ذرات مترسبة من اإللغاز وعدم القدرة على التواصل

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Three prints of my Jizō -photographs transferred on canvas covered with shell powder ,perfume , yarn , sand and glue . 45cmx 45

cm each.

Exhibited in Misr Gallery with video

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Project no.2 - In Between

Project produced in Tokyo Wonder Site Aoyama:Creator-in-Residence (7January ~ 18 February 2014 ) .

Please mention this when you talk/write about the project and if possible use the logo here

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Work consisted of :

- 4 paintings ( 73 x 61 cm ) each

- White canvas checkered with silver leaf on which video recordings from were projected :

Recordings of weekly Friday demonstrations in Cairo year 2013 Recordings I did from inside Horyuji temple - Japan 2014 . Recordings I did of the Tokyo demonstrations -Japan 2014 Recordings of Japan’s on-line streaming earthquake map .

-An installation of patterns stitched on muslin

Statement:

Between Ah and Oum uttered by the two muscular guardians standing at the entrance of Buddhist temple lies a kaleidoscope of life

visualizations.

August 2011

When I entered the Zen garden of Daisen –in temple I thought I am encountering an installation that allows for interesting interlocution

of sign system . Rocks are arranged on the intricate spiral patterns of gravel .

In this space, a certain connection has been made between "form" and "imagination". Signs belonged to it more than it has ever

belonged to the real world. There the rock is not a rock anymore ; the articulation and the montage of the elements within the space

provided it with new identities .Ones that changed across the garden according to the context . A rock was a mountain , a waterfall , a

river , a turtle , a crane , a cow , an island and an ocean .

The whole space worked as a receptive canvas , ready to host elusive visions and generate images that record life experiences .

Confronted with such scenery - I knew I had to exert a proper effort to decode the signs.

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January 2014

In my mind I need a Zen garden .. I need to put things into order . Find clearness in obscurity, create comprehensible form for

incomprehensible situations I encounter every day.

Wondering if there is a system -that functions – simmering underneath ;I sat in the temple confronting the checkered patterns of Mirei

Shigemori , stitching a grid of my own .

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Recorded performance

stitching grids in Tofukuji temple

Mirei Shigemori’s checkered garden

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Above: An installation of patterns stitched on muslin ..

I created grids and geometrical patterns as part of my performance in Tofokuji temple .

Grids are the underlying structure of design process. It generate the spatial structure that help regulate the order of patterns ,

mediating between two poles of order and diversity

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Video recordings projected on checkered canvas

Project was exhibited in :

-Japan Feb 2014 in Tokyo Wonder Site-

-Italy March - April 2014 in Accademia D’Egitto in Roma /“ Carnevale delle Arti Visive Contemporanee”

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Project no.3

Haiku

A rotoscope painting animation project partially developed in workshop called Generator (from September 15 to October 31st )

supported by Medrar for Contemporary Art and Swiss Arts Council in Cairo (Pro Helvetia) .

Haiku refers to a Japanese poetic form used to juxtapose two ideas, create a leap between two parts by bringing about what has

been called an "internal comparison."

Link on Vimeo :

https://vimeo.com/119625681

Passward : jisei Time of production : 2014 Duration : 01:53 Synopsis

Hana to mishi Yuki wa kinouzo Moto no mizu.

The snow of yesterday that fell like cherry blossoms is water once again.

Film starts with a beautiful Japanese jisei haiku poem written by Gozan in the 18th century .Like the haiku , the film is an allegorical meditation on death. But also a layered interpretation of three interlinked narratives : an eastern haiku poem ,a western musical composition and a moving picture . All revolving around the same theme: The fragile transitory stage that lies between life and death . Swallowing pain , struggling, blooming within one's mind even if the body is withering . Film Structure: Based on word (image) /sound interrelated structure in haiku poems . Haiku poems have the 5-7-5 sound structure ; that is to say there are five syllables in the first line ,seven in the second ,five again in the third . Borders of sound do not particularly coincide with borders of words . Sound existed prior to the word (and thus to the image ) ,its meanings and its logic , completely liberated from its tyranny . Similarly in my work sound from Schubert's quartet was primarily used as autonomous units that existed prior to the work itself . Within three sound units/sections , images in the film seem to recur and repeat ( section one ) , settle in (section two ) or stream beyond confined borders (section three) . One doesn't know how the narrative starts nor how it will end and there is no solid story within each section . Film screened in the following venues

-Beirut Animated (October 2015)

- Wekalet Behna in Alexandria (August 2015)

- Rencontres de l’Image / Institut français d'Egypte . (May 2015) ( competition : awarded Jury Prize) - Venice International video art, experimental dance and performance festival (November 2014) -Medrar 6th Cairo Video Festival (November 2014)

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Still images from Haiku animation

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Project no.4

Her Space

Series of paintings I did for women to explore and express their inner realities .

2011-2012

It was part of my study in Japan ..Mainly I was interested in :

- Appropriation of traditional and cultural motifs.

- Shifting Borders between cities, identities, societies and cultures.

-Observing and reconstructing new meanings based on the way things might appear to us when set out of its usual context.

-Create art works overlaid with the contour line of experience. Mainly my encounter with the other

- Visualizing inner spaces into which people might reside and refuge.

Mama

Transfer print and acrylic paint on canvas mounted on wood 130.3 h x 97 w

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Oil on wooden panel - 120cm height x 91 cm width

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Transfer print ,acrylic ,oil paint , silver leaf . 162x162cm

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Oil paint and acrylic on wooden panel. 182x 97 cm .

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Oil and tempera on canvas mounted on wooden panel . 130.3x 130.3 cm

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Acrylic and transfer print on canvas .130.3 x 97 cm .

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Transfer print,washi paper and masking tape on canvas .53×45.5 cm

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Project 5 – Seeing ( work related to my thesis in Japan studying the influence of Zen esthetics on

contemporary artists )

One work consisting of 3 panels ,Left and right panels 162x97cm , Middle panel 162x162cm Oil painting ,tempera, and transfer print

Visualizing a state of mind

Long time ago the monkey figure appeared in Zen paintings as psychological metaphor to express a mind state. Images of monkey in the forest alluded to that of a mind that jumps from a thought to a thought like a monkey jumping from one tree to another .

Photo of the work published in Synopses of Master's Thesis.- University of Tsukuba -school of Art and Design .

Work exhibited in Tsukuba Fine Art museum /Japan.

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Project 6

Visualizing Wu Wei ( works related to my thesis in Japan)

Wu-Wei is an important concept in Taoism and eventually Japanese Zen ..It literally means “non-action or non-doing.”

I used a sumi-e brush , ink stick , and a Japanese paper (washi ) to improvise a few ink strokes, visualizing the concept of Wu Wei

. In Sumi-e it is interesting to see how little one needs to interfere in order to have the work done . It all depends on the washi , the

paper..on the way it allows ink to move slowly along its fibers , naturally creating delicate translucent edges around each form .

I put my drawings against the light and that is how the thing was presented .

Wu Wei ) ) الووـ وي

" الالفعل " و هى خاصية تترك بموجبها األشياء لتنجز بطريقة طبيعية و تلقائية دون الحاجة إلى بذل جهد و منه فى مذهب الزن إلى خاصية , وفي فى مذهب الطاوهو ذلك النزوع الص

مبالغ فيه .

إى (.–مى كان من السهل التعبير عن هذه الخاصية باستخدام االحبار و الرسم بها على الطريقة اليابانية )سو

الواشى ليس مجرد ورق. الواشى يشبه ضوء الشمس نفسه ، لم أر من قبل نوعا من الورق ذلك أن عرضها باستخدام إضاءة خلفية . على ورق الواشى قمت بإرتجال االشكال البسيطة ثم

يعكس الضوء بهذا الشكل الرائع .

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Project 7 – Parallel Architectures (work in process)

This Project Received Fund From AFAC ..please mention this in case you talk about it and if possible include the following logo

-A rotoscope painting animation film based on the crises and atrophy of interpersonal relations between the self and the other.

-The film is a non -static narrative of the real and the imaginary ,juxtaposes scenes from film archive with scenes from real -time

documentary video shooting with a sense of visual poetry

- The working process is mainly experimental , crafted through individual work as well as a series of workshops that allow for people’s

intervention in the proposed narrative

Painted frames from section 2 in film parallel architectures based on Pina Bausch’s work “ Rite of the spring ” (Le Sacré du

Printemps )

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Painted frames from section one in film parallel architectures , (now exhibited in GYPSUM gallery )

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A frame in another sequence based on film Metropolis (science-fiction drama film directed by Fritz Lang)- Oil paint on paper canvas

A sequence based on staged sessions ( real time documentary)

*Photo by Geith El Amin

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Project 8

Disconnected narrative

Collaborative work, Rania Fouad and Faiza Youssef Mansûr exhibited in Mahmud Mukhtar museum in Cairo (2013) and Akki galleria,

in Jyväskylä (Finland ) (2015)..

In Siwa Women entrust their stories in the dresses they stitch .The dress becomes a witness of innumerable memories of joy and sorrow .The woven lines narrate the experiences and emotions of its creator . It compromises real time documentary as well as imaginations all transferred into rustic patterns . Disconnected Narratives is a project I did with my mother Faiza Mansûr using embroidery based on the detached and shredded stories I have been telling her on my return from Siwa oasis .

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Project 9

Alternate Journal

Painting Albrecht Durer on daily bases as an alternate way of tracing my ever-changing self .

An early project .. A set of 60 portraits done in 2004 over two months with oil paint on cardboard . 29x20.5 cm each