"Don’t try to look like the girl in the magazine; the girl in the magazine doesn’t even look like the girl in the magazine," we often hear saying.

In her first solo exhibition, titled The Rainbow’s Neighbors, Egyptian artist Esraa Zidan has decided to explore this truth, taking the side of the "overweight" ladies in her 45 paintings and fostering a message of body positivity. 

“Society, media and social media have been reinforcing the mental image of the supermodel with perfect measurements and proportions. This makes women who do not fit the picture of the girl on the magazine cover or starring in the movie feel inadequate,” Zidan said.

Work by Esraa Zidan (Photo: courtesy of Azad Gallery, Cairo)

With this idea in mind, she started to paint larger women in various situations: enjoying their lives, interacting with each other, bathing, dancing, performing. She even named one of her paintings My Swan Lake.

“Everyone will get the reference to the famous ballet with the impossibility of these ladies performing the dance, yet they are cheerful and happy,” she said.

The exhibition, which ran from 28 September to 12 October, was the inaugural event at the Azad Art Gallery.

The idea that all women are beautiful has been expressed in poetry, novels and other forms of arts. After Zidan started to work on her exhibition, she came across the poem The Beautiful Ones Are Beautiful by the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, which underscores that each woman has her own beauty, and inspired her further.

In it, Darwish describes women as “the rainbow’s neighbours," words which Zidan took for the title of her exhibition. 

The poem is displayed in the heart of the exhibition, highlighting that she is not alone in seeing the beauty in all women. The works also echo the painters that touched Zidan's heart, in particular Fernando Botero, a figurative artist and sculptor work features proportionally exaggerated, or "fat", figures, as he once referred to them. Taking the known masterpieces from the world of arts, the Columbian artist redrew them in a large size, such as Mona Lisa Age Twelve, where he presented the famous subject as a big girl at a younger age.

Work by Esraa Zidan (Photo: courtesy of Azad Gallery, Cairo)

Zidan uses cheerful colours like fuchsia, red and blue in her work, and her subjects are depicted smiling. Her message is clear: all women are beautiful on their own merits.

The artist has used a semi-caricature/comic book style in her paintings, where the facial features are clear but do not resemble typical portraiture. The facial beauty is not the main focus in the paintings; rather, it is the girls’ activities that come to the fore.

Among the many paintings of the artist, the series titled Can You Dance Like Me I, II and III is quite distinctive. They show chandlery dancers, a rare art that no longer exists where a belly dancer performs with a candle holder filled with lit candles on her head, and the cleverness is for the candles to remain lit until the end.

The Wedding Band shows a singing band formed of larger women only. Three girls play instruments, while the singer seems so invested in the song the viewer can tell how much she loves her artform. Once again, there are no men, emphasising the capacity of the women to do anything together and have fun while doing it.

Work by Esraa Zidan (Photo: courtesy of Azad Gallery, Cairo)

Defying gravity was the idea behind I Fly, in the form of a diptych. A girl flying towards the horizon above buildings with the crescent and the stars in one, and flying towards the sky surrounded by birds in the other. The work indicates that if you believe in yourself, you can achieve anything.

In this exhibition, Zidan has certainly taken a different angle from what exist on the artistic scene. Her research -- including her PhD thesis – has focused on unusual forms of female beauty in contemporary mural paintings. Through her work, she has achieved a goal that art should strive for, having the audience feel cheerful and happy after attending the exhibition.

Zidan's debut solo exhibition is also the first exhibition held by the newly opened Azad Art Gallery. The gallery's name comes from the word "perfection" in Persian.

Having opened on 28 September with Zidan's display, the gallery's name carries the philosophy of the gallery.

"It is not just a business aiming at achieving profit. Not that there is anything wrong with that; but we also want to provide support to the artists, including marketing and publicity, with a focus on new graduates and young artists," explained Mohamed Youness Ali, the gallery's owner.

Ali has plans to expand Azad to other locations in the near future.

Work by Esraa Zidan (Photo: courtesy of Azad Gallery, Cairo)

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