Reem Aljeally, also spelled Reem Al Jeally, (; born 1997 in

Khartoum Khartoum or Khartum is the capital city of Sudan as well as Khartoum State. With an estimated population of 7.1 million people, Greater Khartoum is the largest urban area in Sudan. Khartoum is located at the confluence of the White Nile – flo ...

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

) is a Sudanese visual artist and art

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

based in

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

, Egypt. Apart from her own paintings on canvas or open spaces, she is known as curator of Sudanese art exhibitions as well as for her organization The Muse Multi Studios. With this organization, she has been promoting Sudanese artist through networking, workshops and publications.

Life and career

Aljeally graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the

University of Khartoum The University of Khartoum (U of K) () is a public university located in Khartoum, Sudan. It is the largest and oldest university in Sudan. UofK was founded as Gordon Memorial College in 1902 and established in 1956 when Sudan gained independen ...

in 2018. Following this, she studied

drawing Drawing is a Visual arts, visual art that uses an instrument to mark paper or another two-dimensional surface, or a digital representation of such. Traditionally, the instruments used to make a drawing include pencils, crayons, and ink pens, some ...

and

oil painting Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...

at Khartoum Arts Training Centre and had her first exhibition in 2017. Her artistic style of painting is characterized by her choice of strong colours, surreal shapes and a focus on storytelling. This includes her prominent female figures and their relationship with identity, culture, and social issues. Further, her portraits have been described as "intimate and powerful", showing abstract persons with "over-exaggerated eyes and in ..skin coloured an unnatural shade." During the 2019

Sudanese Revolution The Sudanese revolution () was a major shift of political power in Sudan that started with street protests throughout Sudan on 19 December 2018 and continued with sustained civil disobedience for about eight months, during which the 2019 S ...

, Aljeally documented the important role of Sudanese women, who had been largely marginalized during the preceding 30 years of military dictatorship, in several mural paintings in public spaces. One of them was named with the words of a Sudanese poet as ''“Noura dreams of an existence that has no restrictions, a homeland that has no borders, no soldiers, no oppressed, no oppressors”''. Apart from painting, Aljeally has also ventured into the genre of

portrait photography Portrait photography, or portraiture, is a type of photography aimed toward capturing the personality of a person or group of people by using effective Photographic lighting, lighting, Painted photography backdrops, backdrops, and poses. A portr ...

. She added this genre of visual art to her portfolio during the project “New Spaces – Media Labs” organized by the German cultural centre in Khartoum and addressing young, creative artists and independent media organisations. In 2019, Aljeally founded the cultural organization "The Muse Multi Studios". They aim to support Sudanese visual artists through curating, workshops, as well as traditional and online publications. These activities have made the work of Sudanese artists better known, both with Sudanese, as well as across the wider

Middle East and North Africa The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), also referred to as West Asia and North Africa (WANA) or South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA), is a geographic region which comprises the Middle East (also called West Asia) and North Africa together ...

. In September 2023, the organization published the first issue of ''The Muse'' ''Magazine'' both in print and online. Like other Sudanese artists, Aljeally fled to Cairo after the outbreak of the war in Sudan in April 2023.

Reception

To support Sudanese artists in exile, art curator Rahiem Shaddad of Downtown Gallery in Khartoum has been active in promoting contemporary visual art of Sudan since 2019. After the outbreak of the

Sudanese civil war The term Sudanese Civil War refers to at least three separate conflicts in Sudan in Northeast Africa: *First Sudanese Civil War (1955–1972) *Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005) *Sudanese civil war (2023–present) It could also refer to other ...

in April 2023, he co-curated a group exhibition titled ''Disturbance in the Nile,'' including works by Sudanese artists Rashid Diab, Mohammed A. Otaybi, herself and others for galleries in

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Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

, and

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

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. On this occasion, Shaddad called Aljeally an example of Sudanese "artists who came after the revolution, when individuality began to emerge in the art world and people began to talk about what happens, not only in collective spaces, but in private spaces." In March 2024, Aljeally co-curated an exhibition of works by Salah El Mur, Amna Elhassan, herself and four other Sudanese artists in a private gallery in Hamburg, Germany. Commenting on her style and intentions, the artist has been quoted saying:

Exhibitions

Group exhibitions

* ''Disturbance in The Nile'', Broteria Art Gallery / Downtown Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal, June – July 2023 and Casa Arabe, Madrid, Spain, March – May 2024 * ''The Wandering of Dreams'', Gallery Melike Bilir, Hamburg, Germany, February – March 2024 * ''Home: A Daydream'', Tribal gallery, Nairobi, Kenya, October 2023 * ''The Gold of the Grandmother'', Mouches Volantes, Cologne, Germany, July 2023 * ''Surfacing'', Tewasart Gallery, Kampala, Uganda, May 2023 * ''The forest and desert school revisited'', Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi, Kenya , November – December 2022 * ''Bad posture'', Ecelectica contemporary, Cape Town, South Africa , May 2022 * ''Art in Isolation: Creativity in the Time of Covid-19'' * Group exhibition at the

Middle East Institute The Middle East Institute (MEI) is a non-profit, non-partisan think tank and cultural center in Washington, D.C., founded in 1946. It seeks to "increase knowledge of the Middle East among the United States citizens and promote a better understan ...

, Washington D.C. , November 2020 – January 2021

Selected publications

* ''Inside the corner pink house''. The Muse multi studios, 2024

References

External links

Official webpage
*
The Muse multi studio webpage

Interview with Reem Aljeally after her flight to Cairo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aljeali, Reem 1997 births Living people University of Khartoum alumni 21st-century Sudanese painters Sudanese contemporary artists Sudanese artists Sudanese women artists Sudanese women painters 21st-century women painters