Azza El Siddique at COOPER COLE

Artist: Azza El Siddique

Exhibition title: let me hear you sweat

Venue: COOPER COLE, Toronto, Canada

Date: October 26 – December 8, 2018

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and COOPER COLE, Toronto

COOPER COLE is pleased to present a solo exhibi3on by Azza El Siddique. This marks the ar3sts first solo exhibi3on with the gallery.

“Well, 3me passes and passes. It passes backwards and it passes forward and it carries you along, and no one in the whole wide world knows more about 3me than this: it is carrying you through an element you do not understand into an element you will not remember. Yet, something remembers”.

-James Baldwin

Interdisciplinary ar3st working in sculpture, installa3on, pain3ng, and film, Azza El Siddique explores themes of transforma3on and adapta3on through material explora3on. Her sculptural assemblages and immersive installa3ons demonstrate a nuanced approach toward visualizing personal history and family ancestry. Ul3mately these objects are material self-portraits that examine pivotal moments of change. The organic environments she creates offer mul3layered and non linear narra3ves in which forms are placed together as stand-ins for personal spaces of habita3on and in3mate inner states.

Fascinated by the no3on of entropy seen as degrada3on of maXer and energy and its poten3al to reach inert uniformity, Azza El Siddique ques3ons uncertainty and randomness through states of change. Thinking about how energy can shiY and move makes her wonder where it is now and where will it go, and if it can, or when it will cease to exist. What may arise from a ruin that is in a perpetual state of becoming?

Her installa3on, made of steel structures encased in vinyl that house unfired slip cast, unfired clay and glass, is ac3vated by humidifiers. Set to transform, the works warp, deteriorate and rehydrate. As these events simultaneously happen at their own pace and 3me, it reiterates many facets of life and the suspension and modularity with in the works addresses the fragility and poe3cs of life. How to process what is inevitable and how spirituality and religion have tried to understand and provide answers to this existen3alist ques3on? Azza El Siddique’s installa3on suggests a new rela3onship with 3me. By playing with speed and nature, she explores the process of becoming.

Azza El Siddique (b. 1984, Khartoum, Sudan) received a BFA from Ontario College of Art and Design University in 2014 and is a MFA Sculpture candidate at Yale University School of Art, 2019. Azza El Siddique currently lives and works in New Haven, CT.

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, exhibition view, COOPER COLE, Toronto

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, exhibition view, COOPER COLE, Toronto

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, exhibition view, COOPER COLE, Toronto

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, unfired clay, glass, concrete bricks, humidifier, water, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, exhibition view, COOPER COLE, Toronto

Azza El Siddique, let me hear your sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, humidifier, water, concrete bricks, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear your sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, humidifier, water, concrete bricks, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear your sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, humidifier, water, concrete bricks, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear your sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, humidifier, water, concrete bricks, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear your sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, humidifier, water, concrete bricks, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear your sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, humidifier, water, concrete bricks, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear your sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, humidifier, water, concrete bricks, Sandalya perfume oil, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, exhibition view, COOPER COLE, Toronto

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, exhibition view, COOPER COLE, Toronto

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, water, slow drip irrigation system, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, water, slow drip irrigation system, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, water, slow drip irrigation system, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, water, slow drip irrigation system, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, water, slow drip irrigation system, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, water, slow drip irrigation system, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, water, slow drip irrigation system, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, water, slow drip irrigation system, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, water, slow drip irrigation system, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, water, slow drip irrigation system, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, water, slow drip irrigation system, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, water, slow drip irrigation system, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, water, slow drip irrigation system, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, water, slow drip irrigation system, Dimensions variable

Azza El Siddique, let me hear you sweat, 2018, Steel, unfired slip, water, slow drip irrigation system, Dimensions variable