August 19, 2023
WoEgypt
Picture Book “Bassima” By Sahar Abdullah Received A Laureate Award at Moscow International Illustration and Book Design Competition 2023
Sahar Abdallah is an award- wining children’s books illustrator who lives in Canada. She worked with various publishers in the Arab region. Sahar uses various materials such as collage and finds her inspiration in her Cat.
The contest “Image of the Book” – Annual Contest for Book Illustration and Design was founded by the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications together with the Association of Book Illustrators and Designers of Moscow in 2008. In 2017 it became international. During these years about 1000 artists were awarded.
Sahar wrote and illustrated “Fanoun’s Tales” published by Elias and “I Found a Home-Tout the Flea” published by Arab House Library for Books. The two books were nominated for Shaikh Zayed Award. Her third book “Life is Love Not War” was published by Al Banan- Lebanon. She also published a wordless book” Al Raheel” by Al Borj -UAE.
Sahar received Egypt’s State Incentive Award for illustration in 2012. In 2017 a runner up “Mahmoud Kahila award” Lebanon and in the same year was also nominated to Arabi 21 award.
In 2018, she was awarded Etisalat “Best Illustration for “Think of others” and in 2021 “ Book of the Year- Layali Sharzizi” UAEBBY, UAE.
She held several solo exhibitions in Cairo and in Toronto. She also participated in collective exhibitions in Egypt, Canada, UAE and Lebanon. She participated in many workshops related to children’s books in Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Algeria and India.
Her first art show in Toronto, Canada “ Visual Poems” was held in 2019. Her second exhibition was held in 2021; “Like A Lizard”, inspired by a poem by the Egyptian poet Fouad Haddad.
The poem is about a girl “Basima” who glorifies her freedom in a hymn, resembling herself to a lizard who is free to do what she wants.
The narrative in the illustrations goes back prior to where the poem starts and illustrating the girl standing in static postures observing a lizard, she get closer to the lizard and together they danced till they merged in one body, by this unification the girl liberate herself from being standing still ,she moves out from narrow places to wider spaces to a freedom that she always lust for. All this occurs in a realm of Egyptian folkloric motives.
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