“Nun”, Mixed Media on canvas 145 x 90 cm, Lina Osama, Egypt

The iconography of Birth is a series about the complexity and contradictions in family relations. In many ancient civilizations as well as the European Renaissance and Egyptian Coptic art, motherhood and the nucleus family are often the main topics of an iconic painting or sculpture yet nowadays these topics seldom occupy much space in the contemporary art scene although they still make up much of the details of one’s daily life.

Nun: In ancient Egypt, Nun was the name of the oldest of the ancient Egyptian gods and father of Re, the sun god. Nun’s name means “primaeval waters,” and he represented the waters of chaos while in old Arabic language nun is a word meaning ‘whale’. While the painting depicts the surreal moment of ‘drowning’ in the shared identity of a family.