above the Nile

soad@studiosoad.com (Soad A. Kader) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

During my visit to Egypt in 2009, I found myself asking my cousins to stop on various bridges over the Nile so that I could get out and look down onto the river. To think that you can still find people farming the land alongside the river as they have for thousands of years. I was reminded that without the Nile we would not know modern day Cairo or its ancestral ancient Egyptian society. Furthermore, the world’s longest river is the lifeblood of ten African countries: Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

I started looking for images of the Nile and found myself most intrigued with aerial photos and maps. Depending on the distance above the river and how much or what part of the river I was focusing on, different patterns and forms became apparent. I found the patterns familiar and visually succulent. Nature, in its elegance and economy, repeats certain forms and patterns whether viewed on a microscopic or a macroscopic scale. For example, branching patterns emerge from the tiniest bacteria and leaf veins to trees and rivers and to even our own hearts.

Art and science are very different but they both spring from cultivated perceptual sensitivity.~ Frank Oppenheimer

I love becoming aware of things that I had not noticed before and finding underlying unity in diversity. My current series, above the Nile, is an exploration mostly with acrylic inks and pencil on canvas. In these paintings I am investigating the movement and flow of water and the patterns it creates as it embraces the land while moving from source to mouth.

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above the Nile