ASPECTS OF THE ARTISTIC   EXPERIENCE  
  عربى  
      When the distance is lenghtly and   difficicult counting its paces is more difficult if we consider here the paces as time, the elapsing of twenty years of artistic life or experience should remind us to stop and meditate upon its course in respect of its speed, activity and its release.  
 

If the artist always tend to avoid criticism leaving it to specialized critics for this reason  I will only try  to clarify the  features and aspects of my artistic which  I lived  along the twenty last years .

    During the first years   of my experience,I delt with  a personal linieted frame, connected with the motion and shape of things and matters and beings in nature, and

      
 
  the abstract from of these it was an understanding of the  superficial  forms in respective of colures which draw and dyies the forms and the curved lines inspiring a special  world which conception for forms in nature .  
     
   This tendancy evaluated to the frame of Islamic mystic conception and oriental arts in middle ages. This was the result of my studies for their sources in Egypt , Europe and turkey .these studies enabled me to realize an objective entrance experience tour deep artistic heritage.		  
      For the above reasons, we find that the element, motion and colour represent bridges between my contemporary paintings and the Islamic Art which forms an important heritage in Egypt ,specially the element which I use in my compositions are of various forms such as shapes forming Arabic calligraphy in mosques , archades, wood carving ,textile …      
 
  these elements which are the com-ponents of my paintings are inspired by the spirit and idea of heritage to reach at the end the beauty of the form through the abstract value of the Islamic art .  
  The inspiration here dose not mean transmission or reproduction, it is the inspiration based on an analytic understanding of our heritage without being attached literally to its elements.
  
   Thus, we find that the conception of motion in Islamic Arts was basic to give my elements a logic contemporary turning to conserve a human mystic continuity. 		 
      Also my expressive tendencies and colour were basic sin my experience, and are strong components in establishing the features of my artistic personality. This is obvious in the way they are combined together, and the continious dialogue between my expressive tendencies and my basic colours these were in my experience an important factor to give the personality personality of my paintings a different characteristic from others in the same field.       
 
   This is evident also in the correlation of motion and colour, they reflect the continious dialogue between the elements and the geometric forms which reflect a mystic sensation of the coloured mosaics and stained glass with their clear pure colours.  
 

 Also the nature in Alexandria the beautiful city which embraced my artistic experience had direct influence which appeared specially in my recent paintings.

   At last I can say that my artistic experience aim to established forms of the Islamic Art for the purpose of evaluating our heritage and to accept and appreciate the new forms of expression presented by the contemporary artist.

     
 
  NAIMA EL SISHINY   
  The artistic experience by critics

  
     The experience of creativity in the art of Naima EI Shushing has followed a unique continued tendency based on the continuity of growth and development of a complete organized phases one after the other aiming for the development of the artist's personality, that with a liberty of expression which led her to adopt the experimental tendency specially as far as technique to renew her experience by new blood.  
 
    Very much Interested and affected by things and beings in nature also by the center of inspiration which I. the Islamic Arab cultural heritage, specially the graphic arts, the fact that led the artist to dig In the treasures of this heritage, during her studies for the Master Degree.AII this has provided a certain link between her abstract tendencies and the phases of development in her recent ex-perience .		      
 
  Prof. Dr. ADEL EL MASRI          
EL KUWEiT - 1986          
  
 
    Her paintings are an excellent example in the way of using artistic heritage in a contemporary expression of the Twentieth Century full of spiritual and national feelings. 		 
 
DR. NAIMA ATTIA    
ART CRITIC. 1986    		  
 
     Naima EI Shishini is distinguished in her last exhibition .... abstract by nature .... takes from the motion of the small line a motion producer for a bigger movement in a continuity on the surface of the painting it is a form which gains beauty through its diffusion on the surface then takes a geometrical form .... many of her paintings could be reproduce to be good specimen for tapestry.		      
 
  Her paintings reflect the characteristics of the Islamic heritage, specially in its decorative details and colours. These colours become in its most beautiful effect when they are darker.  
     
   I appreciated very much words written by the painter Nourl AI Rawl from Iraq which could be a poem about her paintings. He wrote in NAIMA'S BOOK. 		 
     "from the garden of IBN AL ROUMI and those of Poets of love. I smell the essence of Orient and reach at last a point of light, under the B of Bagdad and this splendid oriental oasis of mystic poems which narrows the distance between the letter and the delicate, heart, between the rememberance and the soul".  
 
SAMIR GHARIB    
ART CRITIC    
EL KAWAKEB .1986    		  
 
   She embraced the style and techniques,of the Islamic arts as well as the contemporary different successive artistic movements.		  
     
   Her main fullfilment was obvious In her new artistic vision, and point of view which helped her to develop a very special expression and techniques either in her abstract paintings or those in which the artist used the rythm of arabic cailigraphy as fundamental element and also added a new flavour of freshness to her colours. 		   
  PROF. DR. MOSTAFA ABDEL MOETY     
1986      		 
     
   EGYPTIAN artist Naima EI Shishiny does not decide on a subject before she begins to paint. She prefers to let it grow on the canvas, developing in its own way while she paints, capturing her experience of art in an expression of her mood. 		 
     Grouped under the title "A Sense of Oriental Art", Naima's works project an impression of all that this includes.
   Fabrics, porcelain, stained glass, calligraphy, books all form the root of her art, and while no realistic forms are described, the impression of her abstract work suggests these elements.
   The l'1istorical blackground of her country is rich in traditional works of art, inspiring Naima depict them with a highly personal vocabulary.

     
 
    As a form of communication, she has deliberately left her works untitled, not wanting to Influence the viewer and allowing each person to find something new. Her technique is not a goal, but simply a means of expression, she says. However, judging by the large role played by brushwork in much of her work, it could also constitute the subject matter.  
  Common in Naima's art are compositions of bands filled with coloured squiggles strongly sugesting Arabic calligraphy, although no actual script is used. In many, the bands create amorphous forms floating within a hazy background.  
  By Susan Litherland     
ARAB TIMES 1985    		  
     
    Naima EI Shishini takes us from a tiresome present to the essence of the past... entrelaced rythm between canvas which are breathtaking and those which inspires you. to confess and pray... 		 
  Colours are not ardent ... but they bearely point out ... from the surface several layers of transparent tones of a certain colour beem,and you can hear its low calm sweet harmony... Forms which are not the forms of letters we know nor the geometrical or plant shapes, these what we can discern are forms with a new conception for the value of heritage with its decorative forms of Islamic Art ...      
 
  AHMED HARIDI    
RADIO & TELEVISION    
ART CRITIC - 1983    		  
     
   Naima EI Shishini's experience has oriented us towards heritage and modernism. She has managed to a certain degree to assimilate the beauty in the oriental arabic Art with its variety of decoratif art, and its calligraphy full of vitality and sensation of motion.		  
     The artist combined this assimilation of the oriental arabic art with the results of her experience which is an expressive abstract intuition, but without "tashism" to present a new experience where abstraction is joined with expression under the cover of a sense of traditional artistic heritage away from reproduction, because assimilation here is not for the purpose of removing the dust or to polish      
 
  what is originally existing but to add to the artist's experience rich components to develop new procedures for her point of view without destroying its originality and its growth.  
 

 

FAROUK BASSIOUNI    
ART CRITIC    
AL.SAKAFA - 1981    

  
     There is something special about the Alexandrian artist although different in style, something felt fn their canvases. It is a kind of mysticism, spiritual and Naima EI Shishini is presenting a cycle of her personal world. A world which is born the instant she meets with the canvas, a world where remembrance and the brain rest for a minute and instead of the rosary of the Souphy (Mystic) the brush and colours are her prayers - Then it is the shining moment and the painting is completed ....  
  MAHMOUD BAKSHISH    
ART CRITIC EL.H ELAL.1973     		 
     
   Alexandrian Artist,translated in her paintings the influence of time whether it is on heritage or on the nature and environment of the city which embraced her experience.
   We find that Naima had two lines: one that reflects the influence of the Alexandrian ambiance, the sea, the rocks, the corals, the algues and the colour, the pure blue and turquoise.
   We find that the paintings of Naims EI Shishini are a perfect mixture of Islamic		      
 
  mystic sensation and the Alexandrian nature which gives her experience a truthful personal expression of art which differ from any other artist dealing with heritage.  
  KAMAL EL OOUELI    
"AI-Messah" - 1973    		  
  This artist - professor and distinguished lady - we love. Appreciate and respect her.  
  She is Dr. NAIMA EL-SHISHINY, an artist who differs from other artists in these times of ordinary quality. She always comes out victorious from all the battles in which she engages, and each time. She represents a real force for the contemporary Egyptian art movement. Her artistic stature is in constant development.

Her artistic technique is freed from the domination of traditional tendencies in painting. She goes out of the limits of these tendencies in order to try new values and discover new horizons, which are accessible only to original painters who join experience to untirable research.		  
   
  It is a voice coming out of Egypt, spreading everywhere and rising upwards. She tries to present everything all at once. by means of color and its unlimited possibilities, its movement, its shades and its dimensions, together with values of surface, all being figured by lier brush, the movement of which is full of sensibility and vitality,
and at the same time with tension accompanied by calm and peace. Closed spaces respire, full of life. emotion and movement. Fields of color are extended in an open space. 		     
 
  Then enters the red color, followed with a particular care by the yellow, after wide expanses of dark blue of different shades, mixed with grey and blue. These are states with peaceful, poetical or emotional backgrounds.  
  We remark this oriental warmth, which unexpectedly grows when our eyes travel across the painting, as a kind of artistic signs emphasizing abstract methods, such as the existence of a frame or a tableau inside the same tableau. We also remark a compulsory change in the direction of the painting, by a suddenly violent brush, and heaped volumes as if they were human crowds.  
  The oriental touch of colors in her abstract paintings has nothing to do with reality or with accumulated culture, or with the exterior. The symbol hidden behind her unities of color has nothing to do with objective world, but
depends solely upon philosophical thought, and draws its identity from ^ihe value of aesthetic and psyched experiences, related to internal tensions and sentimental fluctuations.		    
  In fact. Through the variety of her artistic experiences,
NAIMA EL -SHISHINY felt the importance of the free touch of color in building her remarkable atmospheres and her prodigious world through a rapid and endless rhythm of light,		  
  bursting over an unlimited horizon of soul's immense universe towards the mobile side of Orient's luminosity. Slie also felt that color influences. either steady or moving, express the feelings of the artists during her periods of calm and tension.
Intersection of colors from calm to violence, and from meditation to tension, represents a ceaseless internal movement in the space of the painting, to express the fluctuations of sentiments in connection with present times. Colors - says Picasso - are like expressions of the face which follow changes of emotions and movements of thought. A neuter spot of color or of light, representing a heart in the middle of a dark atmosphere		  
 

   All these reactions of feelings,’ this construction of the painting, tilled with hope. represent a musical epic. the elements of which reflect rhythms of consciousness and of emotion, through lyrical dialogues of color referring to rhythm of life
pining radiations of color.
You are in presence of the work of a great artist who lives her human life and exercises her artistic creativity in order that life may be more important, more fertile, and that the painting may be a means of autodefence.

      
 
    Alexandria. March 1995.    
Prof. Dr. FAROUK CHEHATA    
Sub-Dean of the faculty of Fine -Arts    
Alexandria University    
   I have known Naima El-Shishiny a long time ago. I have known her closely when she was in charge of the old Alexandria Atelier, which still bears the marks of its Founder Mohamed Naguy and of the late artist Effat Naguy. Naima was then full of enthusiasm for the lively Atelier which constitutes the meeting place of the elite of Alexandria artists, writers and intellectuals, and the focus which stimulates young professional and amateur artists who,year after year, overwhelmed the Cairo Annual Youth Salon with the ambitious creations.

Endowed with remarkable vitality and enthusiasm, Naima El-Shishiny has been surrounded by an excellent team of artists who organized successive high-level conferences and exhibitions in a spirit of dialogue and discussion, which took place side by side with activities permanently carried on in the studios arranged in the various rooms of the old building and with a school of young amateurs, operated by Shishiny's colleague, distinguished artist Farouq Wahba.		  
 
   In the main hall of exhibitions at the Atelier, Naima El-Shishiny exhibited more than 70 large and small paintings, representing (he sum of her production during these last years. Through these works, I noticed a clear evolution of her long experience which passed through various transformations by the treatment of Islamic patrimonial origins of calligraphy
      
 
 
    arabesques and geometrical motifs, in singular renderings dominated by gelatinous forms melt out in the background, resembling to infiltrations, radiation, accumulations, entanglements or else to transparences. She always begins by tangible elements from which she gradually moves to a state of innocent spontaneous abstraction.
In order to be able to read out Naima El-Shishiny's works, one should first be acquainted with her psychological world. She is altogether liberalized and open and, at the same time ,religious and even mystic. She travels very often in Europe, America and more in the Orient, having made a long stay in Turkey, and visited most of the South-Asian Countries:		  
 
Her works vary from large to small ones, but all of them cause you to indulge into profound meditation. It is as if you are in presence of a delicate miniature which enthrals you and from which you cannot escape, and at last you surrender to its spiritual fluids which transport you towards the Absolute and the Unknown, where you feel the Greatness of the Greater and the immense vastness of the Universe.		      
 
  All this has become part of the biological and psychological formation of Artist Naima El'Shishiny, so that her works make you sink into a silent meditation, which enables you to know your own self in order to know this universe which shows itself in a space of color, the curve of a line, a spot of light, or the opacity of a shadow.

Her recent works to which she gives the title of "Nature's Victory", are the outcome of her travels in the Far-East where she fell in love with Nature. For it is in the Far-East that she saw nature as different from the one she had met in various countries of the East and West. And through the transparence childishness which still lingers in her soul, Naima let loose both her eyes and her senses to plentifully drink from all this beauty which has a particular nature.		  
 
   Having the nature of a researcher, she studied the Far-Eastern artistic works, both ancient and modern, in order to understand the secret of this difference and of this richness which startled occidental artists, of whom the great artist Van Gogh whose penetrating conscience understood the realms of beauty of, the Far-East. His discovery was the starting point of an artistic discussion, which shook the movement of European art since the second half of the Nineteenth century.		      
 
 
Thus Naima El-Shishiny was open to all the inspirations and, this time, inspiration came from Far-Eastern Nature. But, bearing in her own soul particular hereditary elements, she endowed Far-Eastern Nature with a mystical perspective. She drew the mountains, the sea, rivers, trees, branches, flowers, the summer, spring and- autumn, but the texture of her

paintings yields to a chromatic melody in the form of multi-colored spots. This is not the rational logic of impressionists who represent nature by rational colored spots.

In Naima ElShishiny's works, melody and colored spots are ruled by a psychic and sentimental perspective which enthralls both the eyes and the soul of the spectator and transport him into a metaphysical world where Nature itself disappears, despite the fact that it was the starting point, and you feel the presence of the Mousharabeya, you hear the verses of the Coram and the call for Prayer rings throughout the Universe.

You are then taken into an eternal dream, the dream of a life both more beautiful and more sublime this the victory of arts and surrender of nature

Artist NAIMA EL -SHISHINY presents new paintings, which are true adventures in the realm of the unprecedented and the
unknown. They also continue the uninterrupted progress
reflecting the unceasing efforts of "NAIMA EL -SHISHINY"
and prove that she is always true to her own artistic heritage
which, through color, she transforms 4nto visible reality		  
  Dr.AHMED NAWAR    
President of    
the Sector of Plastic Arts    		  
  Ministry of CultureThe talents of an artist are not subject to any rule and have no limits. As long as he is able to create, he is always placed in front of new horizons which, along the successive stages of an uninterrupted experimentation, offer him the occasion to receive new inspirations.  
  This is exactly the case of Artist Naima El -Shishiny, whose
today's experiences always give birth to her future ones. Since her first attempts in painting, and thanks to her authentic
method of using the different elements and symbols, she
succeeded to create for herself her own modem technique of research in the field of plastic art. In this way, due to the
succession and the development of her forms which undergo
continuous additions and subtractions, her artistic vision is
created, ending in a special technique in which movement in the space is joined to harmony of colors, with an oriental
background reflecting simultaneously historical heritage andmodem outlook.		  
  The last productions of Naima El -Shishiny prove that her
creativity which knows no limits, has the capacity to use
intelligently and skilfully all the elements which the chance
puts on her way, in order to compose an uninterrupted
succession of paintings resembling to musical melodies in the framework of a series of symphonies,each one of them being nevertheless different of all the others.		  
  Dr. ADEL EL -MASRY      
     When, floating immovably on the surface of water and, looking at the sun, you shut your eyes, visible objects disappear and you see them as spectres sparkling from a given centre, a series of color in perpetual renewal and transformation. When you repeat this exercise, the same visions will succeed each other before you.

in a tangible and palpable way. though they do not materially exist around you. Their colors are not habitual and they are linked to each other and irradiate a legendary glare like a glamorous dream. They arc surprising physiological and phenomenological reactions and artists are puzzled when trying to register such obscure phenomena or internal sensations.

From the first glance at NAIMA EL -SHISHlNY's works, you find yourself in presence of a successful attempt to represent this astonishing and obscure physiological phenomenon in a very tacit, humane and agrcable way. 		 
  The experience of this artist consists of a conciliation of the
push of quantitative and qualificative weight of the coloring materials on the surface of the paintings, with her own personal rhythm. Which groups together, acts of chance with intentional acts, in a harmony of form and color and with a symbolic and expressive depth which approaches the disc of Mandala", defined by Karl Young as being the syinbol of human culture.
In her recent works, these circular rythms approach the technique known in south-eastern Asia under the name "Batik", as regards texture
color distribution and the oriental way of formation.
Her paintings seem to represent reeds of plants over which blows a natural force coming from a central point in the painting. What helped her to realize this impression, is the use of a technique by sprinkling color from a distance over the painting, instead of direct coloring with the brush.		  
  Her works reflect her personality which, on the one side, is lull of vitality, emotion and impulsiveness, with rapid elocution, and on the other side, is marked by meditation, religious sentiments and mysticism. They also reflect influences of the Occident, where she often traveled, and of the Near-East, with its mysticism and poetry, where she constantly makes visits. In award. Her works represent a true artistic experience, showing human sentiments and a harmonious aesthetic knowledge.  
  March 1995    
Dr. Mostafa El-Razzaz    		  
 
It was in the sixties, at the apogee of Egypt's revolutionary doctrine, when it was necessary to choose between various alternatives, that. By an act of her free will.
With the aim of regularizing the direction of her own life ,NAIMA EL SHISHINY began her artistic career. This was a daring adventure, at a time when the plastic arts arena was occupied by various prominent artists and followed the cultural revival proposed by Sarwat Okasha and the will of the intellectuals to cross the threshold of modernism.

From the outset, the artist shunned every idea of retreat and by all means, resolved to engage the fight in order to acquire an artistic experience that may ensure the
continuity of her efforts. She desired, in fact, to practice the rites of ait which would renew life and stop the effect of time. She trusted that art was another expression of youth and that it represented the will to live - the elixir that would give the taste of Eternity, in spite of time.
Her beginnings in her experience were marked by precaution, the artistic field being occupied by an intense activity on the part of experimentalists and by great
attempts of all those who surrounded her. This could only encourage her to do more effort.

The artist went through a long path strewn with numerous obstacles, and she astonished us by her ardour in pursuing her artistic activity with an energy lacked even by young artists.
In practice, the artist began by strictly observing the precepts of art. Which enabled her to acquire a valuable experience of colors sincerely expressing life's emotions. In fact, who can deny the richness of technique acquired b experience, or gained through the selection of a given artistic vocabulary? Often in the course of her experiments, NAIMA EL - SHISHINY tried a mixture of acrylic and oil colors, in order to alleviate the lone of her paintings.
She also often tries to scratch or stir the surfaces of her paintings in order to give them the appearance of shape,
but she .soon resumes her liberty of action in order to give full vent to her brush, vigorously casting melodies of colors.

By the end of the eighties, the artist's experience produced an enrichment of the surfaces of her paintings through the weaving of a texture of colors inspired by historical figures of the past. And also produced engravings on paper with scenes of ancient Alexandria.

In the course of the last five years, the artist traveled abroad and her travels enriched her experience through the influence of nature, with its life. its greenness, its bloom and the succession of seasons, from the heat of summer to
the cold of winter, passing through autumn and the joyful and radiant spring.

  
  The final stage of the artist's experience joins the realizations of recent impressionists, showing aspects Of nature through abstraction and simplification. NAIMA EL-SHISHINY thus covers the surfaces of her paintings by
a harmonious and melodious texture. But once more, expressionism illuminates her works by a new light,which gives an additional weight - an additional splendour - to her works.

Works of NAIMA EL-SHISHINY thus give us a model of artistic experience, presenting an example of resistance to the pressure of time and obstacles, and reflecting a strong will to smooth the way for artistic production.		  
  Dr. FAROUK WAHBA