Azza El Siddique (born in Khartoum, Sudan 1984) is a Canadian-Sudanese visual artist based in New Haven, Connecticut. She holds a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University (2019) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from OCAD University.[1] When she was four, her family migrated to Vancouver, British Columbia.[2]
Azza El Siddique's practice revolves around questions of power, temporality, memory, identity, and place, often inspired by archaeology. Some of the materials she uses include clay, scented oils, metal, water, light, and smoke, along with gravity and time which are actors in shaping the life cycle of her "aesthetic ecosystem".[3]
El Siddique's work has been featured in Vancouver, New York, Montreal, Buffalo, Toronto, Miami, and New Haven amongst other cities.[4]
Lattice Be Transparent, which was presented at 8eleven Gallery in Toronto, was an installation of large sculptural works made of fabric, plastic, water, string, glass, cinderblocks, clay, and other materials.[5]
El Siddique's 2023 installation that which trembles waves at Bradley Ertaskiran in Montreal foregrounded her interest in Egyptian and Nubian mythology. The installation centered on a large double-headed porcelain cobra, bound by metal scaffolding. During the time of exhibition, water dripped onto the installation causing corrosion over time. The sensorial environment was heightened by heat activated sandalwood perfumery.[6]
El Siddique has been involved in more than 20 group exhibitions in Canada and internationally.
In 2019, El Siddique's work featured in Material Tells at Oakville Galleries (Toronto), Too Full to Cry at Shin Gallery (New York), Ripe at Dawn at Green Hall Gallery (New Haven), and NADA Miami.
For the show, fire is love, water is sorrow (2021), El Siddique engaged her work in conversation with that of her late brother Teto Elsiddique (1982–2017). The artist joined Elsiddique's paintings to a large metal scaffold, often exposing both the front and back of the works. Along with the scaffolding, El Siddique created metal canvases with soldered designs as counterparts to her brother's paintings.[7] One of these canvases, One washes the other, was shown independently at Charles Moffett Gallery's "Genius Loci" (2023) in New York, which featured artists from around the world displaying a sensitivity to place and environment.
Also in 2021, El Siddique participated in MOCA's Greater Toronto Art 2021 in its inaugural iteration, which highlights prominent contemporary artists working in the greater Toronto area.[8]
In 2024, El Siddique took part in Aporia: Notes to a Medium at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery which explored the importance of doubt in navigating contemporary societies.[9]
El Siddique is the recipient of over a dozen awards. Funding for her project The Edifice of Tirhaga Pt. I (ongoing: 2024) is funded by Creative Capital, a non-profit organization based in New York City. The project transforms El Siddique's late brother's pickup truck into a "mobile public sculpture",[10] relating it to Egyptian funerary rites, a recurring theme in her work, and the combination of ancient and modern technology.
In 2021, El Siddique was resident artist at Amant, a non-profit art gallery in Brooklyn, NY, where she undertook archival research on Egyptian perfumery.[11]
In 2022, she was a resident artist at John Michael Kohler Arts Center, where she worked on sculptural projects.[12]
El Siddique's other residencies have included Silver Art Project (2020), The Lighthouse Works Fellowship (2019), Harbourfront Centre (2014–2017), and the Chautauqua School of Arts (2014).[1]