portraits of Fayoum
The Fayoum Oasis in Egypt is home to some of the world’s oldest portraits. Painted 1600 – 2000 years ago, the ‘Fayoum Portraits’ are extraordinarily life-like images of the people of the time. Painted to adorn the shrouded dead, they seem to express the personalities of their subjects.
When I moved from Canada in 2005, I settled in the village of Tunis near the shores of Lake Qarun, in the Fayoum Oasis. I began to paint the people that I met. I now have my own collection of ‘Fayoum Portraits’. Like the portraits of old, my intention is to capture the individual. But unlike the old ‘Fayoum Portraits’, these are portraits of the living: farmers and fishermen, potters and bakers, mothers and children, the young and the old. These are the people of today’s Fayoum.
When I moved from Canada in 2005, I settled in the village of Tunis near the shores of Lake Qarun, in the Fayoum Oasis. I began to paint the people that I met. I now have my own collection of ‘Fayoum Portraits’. Like the portraits of old, my intention is to capture the individual. But unlike the old ‘Fayoum Portraits’, these are portraits of the living: farmers and fishermen, potters and bakers, mothers and children, the young and the old. These are the people of today’s Fayoum.