2022 Sobey Art Award finalist Azza El Siddique. (Merik Goma)
When you step into one of Azza El Siddique‘s art installations, it’s likely that the first thing you notice will be a scent. It might be sandaliya, a sandalwood oil often used to prepare bodies in Muslim burial practice, or it could be bakhoor, a form of incense made of compressed wood chips soaked in perfumed oils such as myrrh, rose, and frankincense.
The artist — who was born in Khartoum, Sudan, raised in Vancouver, and currently works between Toronto and New Haven, Connecticut — frequently uses both sandaliya and bakhoor as part of her sculptural environments, which have earned her a shortlist nomination for this year’s Sobey Art Award. With a grand prize of $100,000, and $25,000 for each of the shortlisted runners-up, it is Canada’s most generous and prestigious contemporary art award.
“I was actually shocked by it,” El Siddique says of her nomination, speaking over Zoom from her studio in New Haven. “I was really happy and grateful. As an emerging installation artist that makes these room-size, large-scale installations that take commitment and work, I rely on institutional support and grants. So I was really happy to have that sort of support behind my practice — really grateful.”
Her installations are ambitious. Each one is a self-contained ecosystem that can involve smell, sound, heat, and light, with lamps, incense smoke, fog machines, and specially engineered water systems. Though she began by studying fashion design at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) before moving into fibre arts at OCAD University and then eventually to a Master’s in Fine Arts at Yale, El Siddique’s art now incorporates a wide variety of crafts and materials, including metalwork, ceramics, video, and various kinds of technological systems.
In fashion school, she recalls, “I was essentially getting fabric not to behave like fabric and getting other materials to behave like fabric. I was able to build this sort of lexicon of material knowledge.” As a child of immigrant parents, El Siddique also admits that “it never felt feasible to me, at a young age, to see myself as a professional artist. So going into fashion was a way where I felt I could be creative and also have, I thought, a sustainable career. But then I realized, ‘No, the whole thing is that I wanted to be an artist.’ And so that’s when I pivoted and went to OCAD and found myself in fibres. And then I just had a really interesting journey to where I am today.”
Recently, El Siddique’s signature approach has involved quasi-architectural steel structures that function as displays for sculptures made of glass, unfired clay, or sculpted incense — pots, vessels, and figures — usually along with environmental water and heat systems that cause the materials to break down and transform over the course of the exhibition, leaving residues of rust, dust, mud, and smoke. The forms of both the metal structures and the sculptural objects are drawn from El Siddique’s research into the ancient history of present-day Sudan: Egyptian and Nubian mythology and culture, including temples, burial rites, and artifacts.
“All the things I’m interested in,” El Siddique says, “entropy, scent, ritual, science, politics, mythology — they all intertwine in the practices of ancient Nubian and Egyptian cultures.”
Written and oral language didn’t have enough for me. When I’m creating, I’m also trying to represent all these feelings that I don’t have language for.– Azza El Siddique
Standing inside of these environments can feel almost like being in an alien museum, in which ancient and futuristic elements combine in ritual assemblages with an unknown function. Rather than preserve and conserve, El Siddique’s artworks unmake their own contents: they are ruins in process. Thematically, they are about how time and memory manifest in physical materials and processes. They deal with decay and entropy, transformation and rebirth, history and commemoration. But El Siddique’s fascination with the culture of her ancient ancestors is also an oblique way of exploring whose histories are remembered, and how.
“It’s really about power,” she tells me. “I remember being young and realizing how unfair the world is, especially to minorities. And also questioning religion, growing up in a Muslim household that was quite liberal, but realizing at a really young age that I personally didn’t need organized religion in order to be a good human being, seeing that as also a form of power and control.”
She explains how her thinking about the relation between mortality, power, and politics coalesced in a university class she took on the ancient Egyptian afterlife, in which so much of a well-documented and sophisticated social order was based on preparations for death. She wondered about what this history could tell us now: “We do need order, you know? We do need rituals in order to mourn.”
Though El Siddique’s interest in mortality and memorialization is longstanding, it entered into her work in a more personal way after the tragic and untimely death of her brother Teto, a promising artist who preceded Azza at Yale (where he graduated in 2016) and was an honourable mention for the RBC Painting Competition in 2017, shortly before his passing. In 2021, Azza El Siddique mounted an exhibition at Towards Gallery in Toronto titled fire is love, water is sorrow in which her steel armatures became display structures for her brothers’ paintings, accompanied by welded metal drawings and CGI video that used machine learning to fabricate new works based on Teto’s existing art and archives.
“For me,” Azza explains, “it was like taking a close read into his work. And it was interesting because, although my brother and I are both artists, we never really talked about our own work to each other in the way we talked about life and so on — we never really talked that much about art.” And yet, it was her brothers’ example that encouraged her to pursue her education at Yale.
“I was inspired to go to Yale after seeing how much [my brother’s] work evolved while he was there, and I really wanted that for my work as well. It also scared me a little bit, and I always feel like you should do what scares you.”
When we spoke, El Siddique was in the midst of planning an exhibition for the MIT List Visual Arts Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a body of work based on her ongoing research into scent. To prepare, she participated in a residency through Amant, in New York, and apprenticed with a Sudanese perfumer in Maryland. The steel-framework architectural space for this show is based on the birth-house temple of Dedwen (or Dedun), the ancient Egyptian and Nubian god of incense. El Siddique also created bakhoor scent sculptures cast as water lilies, along with CGI videos involving 3D scans of the materials from the bakhoor recipes.
While all of these works are research-intensive, El Siddique’s practice is not meant to impart information, but to enthrall the senses. “I’ve always been a visual learner,” she explains. “Written and oral language didn’t have enough for me. I think that when I’m creating, I’m also trying to represent all these feelings that I don’t have language for. Through fragmenting things, I can begin to understand.”
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
In a case that has sent shockwaves through the Vancouver Island art community, a local art dealer has been charged with one count of fraud over $5,000. Calvin Lucyshyn, the former operator of the now-closed Winchester Galleries in Oak Bay, faces the charge after police seized hundreds of artworks, valued in the tens of millions of dollars, from various storage sites in the Greater Victoria area.
Alleged Fraud Scheme
Police allege that Lucyshyn had been taking valuable art from members of the public under the guise of appraising or consigning the pieces for sale, only to cut off all communication with the owners. This investigation began in April 2022, when police received a complaint from an individual who had provided four paintings to Lucyshyn, including three works by renowned British Columbia artist Emily Carr, and had not received any updates on their sale.
Further investigation by the Saanich Police Department revealed that this was not an isolated incident. Detectives found other alleged victims who had similar experiences with Winchester Galleries, leading police to execute search warrants at three separate storage locations across Greater Victoria.
Massive Seizure of Artworks
In what has become one of the largest art fraud investigations in recent Canadian history, authorities seized approximately 1,100 pieces of art, including more than 600 pieces from a storage site in Saanich, over 300 in Langford, and more than 100 in Oak Bay. Some of the more valuable pieces, according to police, were estimated to be worth $85,000 each.
Lucyshyn was arrested on April 21, 2022, but was later released from custody. In May 2024, a fraud charge was formally laid against him.
Artwork Returned, but Some Remain Unclaimed
In a statement released on Monday, the Saanich Police Department confirmed that 1,050 of the seized artworks have been returned to their rightful owners. However, several pieces remain unclaimed, and police continue their efforts to track down the owners of these works.
Court Proceedings Ongoing
The criminal charge against Lucyshyn has not yet been tested in court, and he has publicly stated his intention to defend himself against any pending allegations. His next court appearance is scheduled for September 10, 2024.
Impact on the Local Art Community
The news of Lucyshyn’s alleged fraud has deeply affected Vancouver Island’s art community, particularly collectors, galleries, and artists who may have been impacted by the gallery’s operations. With high-value pieces from artists like Emily Carr involved, the case underscores the vulnerabilities that can exist in art transactions.
For many art collectors, the investigation has raised concerns about the potential for fraud in the art world, particularly when it comes to dealing with private galleries and dealers. The seizure of such a vast collection of artworks has also led to questions about the management and oversight of valuable art pieces, as well as the importance of transparency and trust in the industry.
As the case continues to unfold in court, it will likely serve as a cautionary tale for collectors and galleries alike, highlighting the need for due diligence in the sale and appraisal of high-value artworks.
While much of the seized artwork has been returned, the full scale of the alleged fraud is still being unraveled. Lucyshyn’s upcoming court appearances will be closely watched, not only by the legal community but also by the wider art world, as it navigates the fallout from one of Canada’s most significant art fraud cases in recent memory.
Art collectors and individuals who believe they may have been affected by this case are encouraged to contact the Saanich Police Department to inquire about any unclaimed pieces. Additionally, the case serves as a reminder for anyone involved in high-value art transactions to work with reputable dealers and to keep thorough documentation of all transactions.
As with any investment, whether in art or other ventures, it is crucial to be cautious and informed. Art fraud can devastate personal collections and finances, but by taking steps to verify authenticity, provenance, and the reputation of dealers, collectors can help safeguard their valuable pieces.
