PROFILE: Amirra Malak

Two Rivers, One Artist

By Tomi Owens, 1-25-06

The Nile and the Columbia — two of the world's great waterways and seemingly worlds apart. But for artist Amirra Malak, these rivers and their contrasting cultures both inspire her work and define her life.

Amirra's father is Egyptian, her mother American, and she has always felt stretched and shaped by living between these two lands and the two peoples. As she developed as an artist, her work began to illustrate a juxtaposition of Middle-Eastern aesthetics and Western painting techniques. Amirra's art also explores the disparity between traditional women’s roles in Egypt versus American culture. In her words she uses painting "to express the tension between this union of opposites that is my life."

A collection of Amirra’s paintings is currently being exhibited at Jean’s@110 coffee shop, on 5th Street in Hood River.


Amirra, 33, has plenty of time to contemplate the Columbia. She and her husband live in Hood River, she teaches high school art in Cascade Locks and her art studio is located in the newly opened Hatchery Studios in White Salmon. Amirra says that looking at the Columbia is like a photo negative of the Nile; the shapes are the same but the colors are reversed. It was the vibrancy of the natural environment that first drew her to the Northwest. After spending much of her young life in the desert, the lush greenery of the Cascades was novel, and inspiring.

Amirra began art school in New York but while on a trip to Washington state to visit a friend, she fell in love with the mountains and forests. Captivated, she abandoned the East Coast and moved to Ellensburg, Wash., to complete her degree. While there, she met and married fellow artist Chad Mayo and the two "bopped around the Northwest" for a few years. Amirra pursued a Masters degree in Education at Portland State University and upon earning it, she began teaching at Cascade Locks.

The paintings exhibited this month at Jean's coffee shop are from a series Amirra completed last summer in her new workspace at Hatchery Studios. The subject matter is simple: Leaves, plants, and trees of the Northwest. The execution, however, is ablaze with the intense sunlight and vibrant colors of the Middle East.

Another essential element in this exhibit is the repetition of select Arabic calligraphy that phonetically sound out a common Egyptian belly dance rhythm. This repetition, mantra like, is a vibrating drumbeat of brushstrokes which express the life force of nature. To Amirra, "the words become pure visual expression as the layering of color and text obscures the writing’s literal meaning."

Shadow Reflections, a verdure maple leaf is suspended, quivering, in a honey gold glow as Arabic script painted in lapis lazuli and turquoise, Phoenician purples and crimson undulates in a rippling current of color. The words are a rhythm, a pulse, and the image dances with life.

Traditional dance and music are an important part of Egyptian culture and Amirra has chosen to share this heritage with others. I first met Amirra when she taught a belly dancing class in Hood River. Amirra is a wonderful teacher. Along with learning our shimmies and shakes, Amirra felt it was important that we explore some of the differences between her father's culture and ours.

I have traveled in the Middle East and know how jarring it is to American sensibilities when we cross into this very different society. What is hidden or repressed in one culture is often flaunted and encouraged in the other. Aggression, fatalism, and vengeance are much more accepted in the Middle East. Here, on the other hand, we are much more comfortable publicly expressing our sexuality, our vulnerabilities, our feelings — sentiments that would be considered signs of weakness or even perversity in Egypt.

It is the resulting dichotomy of gender relationships which rouses the social consciousness of Amirra's art. Feminine beauty is greatly revered in Egypt, as are female dancers, but they must remain hidden away. Traditionally, respectable women only dance with female friends and family. One of Amirra’s most profound memories is attending a neighbor’s wedding where, after the official ceremony, the women retreated to a separate space to dance in celebration of the marriage. Meanwhile, the men were entertained by a professional belly dancer. It would have been disgraceful for the bride or her female friends to dance in the sight of the men.

Amirra explained that many of the women in her Egyptian family not only accept the division of the sexes but also believe that femininity should be private, revered, even sacred. Dance is the natural way to honor womanhood but its practice is cloistered and isolated. Any woman who dances publicly risks alienation from her family or worse. As an American, Amirra struggles with this dualism. The vast chasm between the two Egyptian concepts of femininity is explored in her portraiture.

Belly dancers and Cowboys and Mary Magdalene, two of the larger paintings at Jean's, while not overtly scandalous, are provocative and bold in subject matter. These paintings both portray belly dancers and Arabic motifs in background architecture and geometric patterns.

An inversion of Amirra's study on plant life, Mary Magdalene captures Egypt painted in the muted greens and earthy browns of a Northwest palette. The large-as-life belly dancer shimmies under an ancient archway, a flash of gold from a string of coins jingling on her hip brings motion and light to the sultry, sensual tableau. She tempts us to celebrate with her an art that is both forbidden and revered. She beckons with her dark, seductive smile for us to join her on the banks of the Nile.

Close by, our own great river is cloaked in gray cloud and mist. As I trace the painting with my eyes, rain is pattering against the coffee shop window, and I am tempted. I can imagine stepping through Amirra's painting into a balmy Egyptian night, the air rich with hookah smoke and the scent of cloves, to dance bare-armed and bejeweled to the tambourine and drum under a clear desert sky.

Tomi Owens is a freelance writer living in Hood River, and a regular contributor to New West Columbia Gorge. She recently wrote about the

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