Rashida Eli
Self portraits are an essential part of my artistic repertoire as they allow me to dig deep into my own psyche and reflect on my inner world. It is a direct way for me to connect with myself and express my most vulnerable feelings. Especially if I find myself unable to express them in reality. It is the most straightforward path into my emotions and gives me a much better understanding of who I am as an artist.
Subject: Self
Self portrait 2013, charcoal on paper, 21” x 30”
Rashida Eli is an Uyghur-Canadian contemporary artist who graduated from the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts in 1987, majoring in oil painting. Eli's works present a strong figuration practice that engages feminist critique and captures the emotional dispositions of her subjects grounded in the context of Xinjiang, the North-Western region of China. She is best known for painting members of her community with a heavy focus on the "Mother and Child" motif, expressing the inner struggles and empowerment that come with motherhood. In 2001, together with her husband, Eli held a joint exhibition at the National Art Museum of China. She was one of the artists selected by the Mayshad Foundation to spotlight international female artists. Eli has exhibited her works in the Xinjiang and Guangzhou International Biennales as well as numerous exhibitions in Toronto and Miami. In 2022, thirteen of her works were exhibited in the Beijing 2022 Biennale Special Exhibition - "Sniffing Roses, the Art of Life": Ten International Female Contemporary Artists (Beijing and Shandong). Eli has been featured in art journals and programs such as MeiShu (Art) (China), MeiShuCongKan (Journal of Art) (China), New Vision (TV), as well as OMNI TV, Hong Kong Asia Television and the Oriental Horizon programme of China Central Television. Her works have been added to the permanent collections of the National Art Museum of China, CAFA Art Museum and the Xinjiang Art Museum. She has been collected throughout England, Canada, Australia, the United States, and China. Tayfun Belgin, director of Osthaus Museum Hagen, writes in his review: "Eli's works remind German recipients of scenes of Magical Realism, an art movement that emerged in the aftermath of World War I: people who had suffered major setbacks in their existence, poverty spreading, a society that had lost its center. Rashida Eli's line drawings address such limits of social existence in a special way. The people depicted here, even if they are in different circumstances, do not lose their dignity at any time. Their pictorial worlds thematize worlds of inwardness in a masterly way."