Forced Relationship
Artist
Souad Abdelrassoul
(Egyptian, born 1974)
Date2022
Mediumacrylic on canvas
Dimensionscanvas: 100 × 100 cm (39 3/8 × 39 3/8 in.)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineChapin Riley Fund at the Greater Worcester Community Foundation
Object number2022.69
Label TextBlending pan-African artistic influences and a modernist painting style, Abdelrassoul creates surrealist paintings inspired by her experiences as a Middle Eastern woman. Her imagery often combines humans, animals, and nature to imply an interdependence of all living things. Here, the wounds of the truncated trees are highlighted in orange, echoed in the distortions of the woman’s face. She is clothed in a transparent garment to symbolize the vulnerable feeling of being exposed even when covered—a feeling the artist says she and other women in her society (and many others) experience. The anthropomorphized owl wraps an arm around her, intensifying the surrealism of the scene.
(2023)ProvenanceSold by the Artist, via Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi, Kenya, to the Worcester Art Museum,On View
On viewCurrent Location
- Exhibition Location Gallery 321
