By Michele Stueven

Los Angeles-based Egyptian artist Sherin Guirguis’s work Rise has been unveiled at the recently opened Aviation/Century Metro Station near Los Angeles International Airport on an elevated light rail station along the K-Line at the intersection of Aviation Boulevard and Century Boulevard.

By Jessica Gelt and Ashley Lee

“CUT — Six Artists on the Edge”
This group exhibition — featuring works by David Adey, David Daigle, Sherin Guirguis, Fran Siegel, Edra Soto and Samira Yamin — is all about the various methods of cutting as methods of creation and transformation of physical objects: tearing, slicing, carving, drilling, laser cutting and more. 

Aviation/Century is the eighth station on the K Line and features Rise, a prominent artwork installation by Sherin Guirguis. The station will be the new endpoint for the C Line, which now runs between Norwalk and Aviation/Century. The K Line will continue between Expo/Crenshaw and Westchester/Veterans, and between Aviation/Century and Redondo Beach, the new terminus for the K Line’s south segment.

Sherin Guirguis’s exhibition at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, titled “A’aru // Field of Reeds: Gathering,” is deeply rooted in the 12th-century Sufi poem “The Conference of the Birds.” Guirguis, along with a collective of female artists and activists, explores the geometric forms of old Egyptian dovecotes and translates them into evocative abstractions using ink, gouache, and gold leaf. Her works on paper reflect a connection to previous generations and the solidarity she has found within her creative community.

Sherin Guirguis’s latest body of work has its roots in the 12th-century Sufi poem The Conference of the Birds (Manṭeq al-ṭayr) by Farīd al-Dīn Aṭṭār, which recounts the story group of birds who embark on a journey to find God. During the pandemic, Guirguis and a collective of female and female-identifying artists, writers, and activists would meet regularly to read the work together. For her solo show A’aru // Field of Reeds: Gathering, the Egyptian-born artist uses the story as a jumping-off point for her evocative abstractions based on the geometric forms of old Egyptian dovecotes.

Working in painting, sculpture, installation and architectural engagement, artist Sherin Guirguis practices a hybrid form of object and image constructions that draws equally on personal, emotional gestures and thoughtfully sourced motifs from the outside world. Navigating individual, family, and cultural memory through abstract language and specific narratives, for Guirguis the act of embodying the schemes and energies of the past in evocative visual forms anchors history more indelibly within the present. 

During all hours of day and night in the bustling city of Cairo, you'll hear the sound of blaring horns, like cars communicating in a secret language. At the Pyramids of Giza, though, all you'll hear is the wind - a language the ancients were familiar with - and currently, Egyptian-born, L.A.-based artist Sherin Guirguis' sculpture Here I Have Returned (2021), with its two cymbals clanging when the gust is strong.  

Based in Los Angeles, Egyptian-American visual artist Sherin Guirguis draws her inspiration from the journeys of women fighters who have left their mark on history. She is taking part in the Forever is Now exhibition at the Giza Pyramids.  As usual, she evokes the stories of women from different eras: the goddess Isis, the feminist intellectual Doria Shafik... Sherin Guirguis' feminism is not limited to gender equality, but evokes the right of women to live freely, questioning the relationship between the individual and society.

Sherin Guirguis created the Kholkhal Aliaa installation inspired by a Bedouin anklet. "How do you make art in a place that's so beautiful? The idea was to create a piece that honors the site and honors the beauty and grandeur of this geology and landscape, while also bringing in the people's history and culture, weaving it together so you can engage with the place and its story." 

One way in which the architecture of everyday life can be reformatted is through acts of political dissent, which transitions a familiar place into a site of extraordinary significance and enduring cultural relevance. This process is alluded to in Guirguis’s 2013 series Passages // Torroq, which reproduce architectural details from Cairo’s main train station. Untitled (lahzet zaman), (Untitled [moment in time] ), is fashioned after one of the most prominent features of the station, the windows and clock of the corner tower.

With a set of wheels and a decent 4G connection, anyone can come visit these sites, which have been conveniently plotted as Dropped Pins on Google Maps courtesy of the Desert X website. The best work engages the viewer with a dialogue with the land, including Sherin Guirguis’s One I Call, a clay bird refuge with glittery bits of gold in the open roof, nestled in the shadow of a steep cliff in the serene Whitewater Preserve. 

At another trailhead further west, near the base of the Whitewater Preserve, the Los Angeles-based Sherin Guirguis has built a domed, earthen sculpture like the pigeon towers popular in Egypt, where she grew up. The towers are typically used to breed the birds for food or sport (and, more rarely, for espionage missions). Her sculpture has niches for birds, but she doesn’t expect any to actually use it; she wants viewers to wonder about its significance.