Dina El-Sioufi - Egypt

Dina El-Sioufi born in Alexandria, Egypt. Grew up and studies in London UK. BSc. Physics/ PostGraduate Diploma Maths/Physics, Kings College 1989. Art History Studies & Diploma Christies 1993 & Sotheby’s 1995-97. MA Modern French Studies: Dissertation”Staging the Feminine in Balthus & Pierre Klosowski”, 2000 (Birkbeck College London University).  Interdisciplinary PhD French: dissertation “Hans Bellmer & The Experience of Violence “, 2006 ( University College London).

Freelance work during and after. Started painting end 2010 attending  short courses sporadically; Royal Drawing School, Heatherleys, Slade Summer School and in Nice & Lyon, is France. Various group and solo exhibitions from 2016- now. 

Artist Statement 

Painting is another form of writing. What I seek to express there is a human condition that involves a combination of figure via faces and the body and intellect/mind via writing in the painting, respectively. Although portraits were the beginning these evolved into imagery taken from Ancient Egypt as the ongoing past present in our psyche and part of our cultural identity. This then became more and more a research into other cultural forms that are distilled into ideas and writing for my paintings. For this I turned to my greatest passion; music & opera, in particular 20th & 21st-Century composers. There the chosen texts are a great inspiration constituting a multilayered  voyage into all aspects of humanity, history and socially.  

My painting is predominantly allegorical-expressionist through figuration and writing. 

Contact: sioufi912@gmail.com

Website: dina-elsioufi.com

Vote for Dina in the Sakura Art Prize