Soad A. Kader: Recently Added Galleries and Collections

above San Francisco

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

salt water cures

I almost always want to sit by the window. I love looking out - seeing and feeling different types of space, especially the change of perspective looking down, like when I am on a rooftop or in an airplane. The surprise, mystery, or wonder at what I am observing is a thrill. It isn’t always important to know what it is I am looking at. Sometimes it is better not knowing but just enjoying the colors, textures, lines, shapes, qualities of light or movement. I am endlessly interested in exploring the varieties of visual delight; that pleasure we can take in the everyday experience of looking… and seeing anew.

On a recent flight home into San Francisco International Airport (SFO), the fog parted long enough during the decent to see an amazing patchwork of vivid color below. I’d seen it before but that day the image lingered and tickled my curiosity.

People have been making salt from the San Francisco Bay water for over 100 years. The water flows into the ponds and over time through the evaporation process changes its salinity from 2% to 32%. The various salinity levels support different types and concentrations of life – halophilic algae, bacteria, and other organisms. These tiny creatures paint our landscape with bright yellows, greens, reds, and oranges. Reading about the history, politics, and science of the salt ponds is fascinating but my primary crush and inspiration lie in the color!

The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea. ~Isak Dinesen

courting the goal

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

courting the goal

I just can't stop my boogie! Whether it's on the dance floor, in the streets or through my brush and onto the canvas, the spirit and energy of movement lights my path through this wonderful life. I am ever grateful to keep moving, growing, learning... and sharing.

I am working on a series inspired by The Beautiful Game, by the movement of the ball on the fútbol (soccer) field. Following the movement, I feel the rhythm of the flow as the players use the space in innovative and unpredictable ways to move the ball closer to the net… a kind of boogie toward... Goooooooooool! Gol! Gol! Gol!

abrazos: above & close

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

abrazos

I fell in love with Argentina during my first visit there in March/April of 2008. One of the effects of this love is a yearning to dance Tango. The process of learning this sensual, improvisational dance reveals layers of metaphor for life, relationships, intimacy. Dancing tango requires complete presence with, connection to, and trust in one’s partner. Practicing these skills not only increases fluidity toward more beautiful dancing, but ultimately toward a deeper understanding of self and one another.

Through an embrace (abrazo) we can feel our partners, feel our own emotions, feel our body, feel the music, feel the movement, and feel a connection all which we hope to respond to or express each time we come together and step out onto the dance floor.

I am exploring this experience in my close-up paintings of embraced couples, as if the viewer is dancing with them, feeling that special energy created between them. In another group of paintings, I show bird’s eye views of a Milonga, (a Tango dance party), exploring the emotion and movement expressed in a particular space.

In 2009 I've been making a series of monotypes, mostly in a small format (6x6 and 10x5 inches), and mostly in black and white. They focus on a single couple viewed from a more intimate distance overhead - an invitation to see and feel the nuances of the embrace in motion.

drawing lines

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

abrazos: monotypes

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

abrazos

I fell in love with Argentina during my first visit there in March/April of 2008. One of the effects of this love is a yearning to dance Tango. The process of learning this sensual, improvisational dance reveals layers of metaphor for life, relationships, intimacy. Dancing tango requires complete presence with, connection to, and trust in one’s partner. Practicing these skills not only increases fluidity toward more beautiful dancing, but ultimately toward a deeper understanding of self and one another.

Through an embrace (abrazo) we can feel our partners, feel our own emotions, feel our body, feel the music, feel the movement, and feel a connection all which we hope to respond to or express each time we come together and step out onto the dance floor.

I am exploring this experience in my close-up paintings of embraced couples, as if the viewer is dancing with them, feeling that special energy created between them. In another group of paintings, I show bird’s eye views of a Milonga, (a Tango dance party), exploring the emotion and movement expressed in a particular space.

In 2009 I made a series of monotypes, mostly in a small format (6x6 and 10x5 inches), and mostly in black and white. They focus on a single couple viewed from a more intimate distance overhead - an invitation to see and feel the nuances of the embrace in motion.

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.

faces

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

veil, reveal

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

veil, reveal

While I was painting my series of faces, I found myself being intrigued by covering them and then uncovering them with different layers, gestures and textures of paint. In doing that, I realized that I was veiling them.

A veil is an emotionally charged piece of cloth, an article of clothing that evokes sensual, sacred, or political reactions depending on cultural, social, or historical context and individual interpretation. This cloth can protect or provoke, hide, disguise, secure or reveal, enhance or mystify individual personality. It also communicates identity with a particular group, but at the same time, it has a highly personal meaning to the wearer. In the West, a veil in white is associated with a bride, while in black with a widow. It can be made of silk, cotton, or wool and can be tossed, wrapped, draped, tucked, tied or pinned in hundreds of styles. Called a head wrap, headscarf, headdress, turban, or veil, a piece of cloth has been used to cover the head and sometimes the face in cultures worldwide for centuries.

My Egyptian Muslim memories of early childhood in Cairo include learning verses from the Koran and praying alongside my grandmother Soad. Being a good Muslim was about moral and spiritual understanding and practice. What one wore was insignificant to religious belonging and spiritual commitment. I remember my aunts following the latest fashions from Paris, which at the time included mini skirts and sleeveless dresses, and this choice didn’t make them any less Muslim. Headscarves were worn by some villagers, but were quite rare in the city. Decades later, due to sociopolitical and economic reasons, Egyptians’ interpretation of religion changed to focus more on outward appearances and rituals under the guise of being true to one’s identity of being and looking Muslim and not Western.

Particularly since 9/11, for many Westerners a veiled woman represents oppression and a highly visible sign of a despised difference. There is often a reaction to want to liberate, empower, enlighten; this assumption delivered with condescending sympathy. These kinds of responses have always made me bristle. At the same time, they have challenged me to share personal experiences and ideas in an effort to encourage inquiry and learning rather than assumption and judgment.

By painting different images of veiled faces and figures I am revealing a broad range of emotion that reflects the wearer’s great spirit, beauty, elegance, wisdom, mystery, connection, and strength regardless of that individual’s particular perspective or circumstance.