FATIMA SERIES
These are collage and mixed media works, recently done in Fes, Morocco, from papers and other materials found/picked-up/collected in the Old Medina. They take their inspiration from the Old Medina, the shapes, forms, textures and colours of Medina life and its architecture and the relationship of the built environment to the human form. And specifically, in this particular body of work, it is to the form of the female figure - the city as a brooding and symbolic feminine entity, the overlooked, neglected, and suppressed image of the Great Mother (here in Morocco, understood as the Fatima figure, the wife of the prophet Mohammad, and an equivalent to the Madonna image in the West). Fatima is the brooding and spiritual female presence. While her presence breathes through the sacred architectural language, and she is viewed with deep veneration, women in the Islamic world continue to face real marginalization and difficulty in establishing equal rights and opportunities. The work is my response to this ingrained irony.
