A Simple Gesture #1 Artwork

Biography  Ayda Mansour was born in Cairo, Egypt into an artistic family, with a grandmother an established artist, curator, gallery owner and interior decorator and uncle who is an award-wining photographer. Mansour grew up immersed in art, always surrounded by creativity and imagination. After graduating from the American School in Cairo, she completed her Bachelors degree in Studio Arts at Concordia University in Montreal. Mansour graduated with distinction in 2012 and went on to working at an art gallery specialized in Canadian masters, for the following 5 years. Mansour held several exhibitions in; Montreal, Cairo, Portugal, Washington DC and New York City. In 2016 Mansour also participated in the Tokyo Art Fair. Mansour mainly paints large-scale abstract works that buzz with texture and light. Her journey from realism to surrealism to abstraction began in 2011 with the upheaval of the Egyptian revolution, in which she began to explore how to represent emotions, like fear, in her art. She shifts between different mediums; oils, acrylics, collage and pastels, using different tools to create interesting textures. In her recent works, Mansour has began including figures and pronounced subjects, moving towards representational painting. Mansour currently lives in Egypt, where she continues to produce art. Statement ‘My artwork is a portrayal of all of the social, political and cultural issues I experienced throughout my lifetime. As an introvert, I have always found overt expressions of emotion difficult. Fortunately, I find my release through the use of color on a canvas. I began by painting realistic and surreal images of my fears and thoughts, but eventually, I evolved towards the abstract. It is not always easy to capture the exact image of an emotion that has consumed your mind. However, through my use of different techniques when applying paint to a canvas, as well as carefully and deliberately choosing my colors, I am able to express myself, and thereby allow viewers to exercise their imagination and hold interpretations individual to them.’