Hayam Elsayed
"My inspiration comes from many places. Since my early days as an artist, my family has been a major influence on my work; a single unit of security within a world full of evil and vices. As the artist within me grew and matured, I have found other sources to stimulate my creativity."
Hayam Elsayed is an Egyptian artist working from her studio in Cairo. She has produced art across various mediums as she studied the old masters, and these days she prefers to paint with oils. Hayam is fascinated by human emotions, sensuality, and space. Through the female subjects in her paintings, she works to unlock reactions in the viewer.
Hope, love, and courage are among the feelings artist Hayam Elsayed delivers through the versatile characters in her portraits. Her inspiration comes from looking at people's faces and watching the way they laugh, cry, and react to all the senses surrounding them. Studying in Florence, Elsayed became fascinated by the portraits she saw there.
"I could feel the painting, the color, the design of the portrait itself, as if I was a part of the painting. Looking back at that time, I can see how my life and my whole perspective towards art had changed," she explains.
Egyptian-born Elsayed's first artistic medium was drawing in pencil but transformed her work when she moved onto paints, noting,
"When I held the brush, I felt a different motion go threw my hand while I was painting my first painting."
Through her strident use of color and finding the emotions hidden within her subjects, Elsayed focuses on women of all races and colors Asian, Arab, Caucasian, African – and there's something deeply engaging about every muse, with her main aim being to reveal the intensity of emotions through the gaze of the eyes. Watching people laugh, cry and react is what inspires all her work. She breathes life into her paintings through detailed drawing techniques and color choices that highlight the subjects' intense gazes... Her striking works focus on the rights and treatment of women, and hopes her paintings will heal and help people.
