The Cabinet Press Hollis artists’ work takes off
Thursday, January 21, 2010 by HATTIE BERNSTEIN.Staff Writer

HOLLIS – Every day, about 12,000 people go to the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum.
Foot traffic isn’t quite that high at Terminal A at Boston’s Logan International Airport, although each day, thousands of passengers walk through the building where the work of two Hollis artists, Albine Vermot-Gaud and Marilene Sawaf, are part of an exhibit, “The World Around Us.”
The three-month exhibit is one of more than 40 temporary displays sponsored by the airport’s aviation department since 2001, providing exposure for local artists and pleasure for travelers arriving in the city or waiting for a departing flight.
The “World Around Us” features five area artists, members of New Hampshire Artists International, a group whose members have roots in nations around the world.
Nashua resident Rose Mazzone, manager of Terminal A, came up with the idea for the show after meeting Vermot-Gaud in 2008 at the annual Hollis Fine Art Festival. She invited the Hollis artist to show her work and encouraged her to organize an exhibit that included some of her peers.
Paintings by the New Hampshire artists represent a world of cultures and experiences.
Vermot-Gaud grew up in Italy and France. Sawaf is from Lebanon. North Pepperell, Mass., resident Nita Leger Casey is from France. Nashua resident Yong Chen is from China. And New Boston resident Mary Buergin is a New England native................................................................................................
Hollis neighbor and colleague Marilene Sawaf entered five paintings in the airport show, many of them influenced by her studies in design, stained glass and medieval art. Her work, which she said has evolved over a 30-year period, reflects an appreciation for oriental carpets and Byzantine tapestry.
Many of her images depict sweet-faced, rosy-cheeked women, images she calls “flower women” because they’re composed of colorful flowers.

Portsmouth Herald. 7-31-2005. Creative pursuits fill woman's life By Nancy Cicco.ncicco@seacoastonline.com.As a child, she fled Egypt with her parents during the country's socialist revolution and spent her formative years in Lebanon, amid that country's civil war. Marilene Sawaf knows strife, which makes her appreciate stability even more. Perhaps it's not surprising, then, to have found her sitting in a lawn chair on New Castle's Great Island Common on Wednesday, having painted the scene as she looked out over Portsmouth Harbor, with Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse to her left and Whaleback Ledge Light to her right.  A full-time artist, Sawaf came to the common with other members of "The Breakfast Club," a group of Nashua-area artists that gets together at Borders bookstore in Nashua every Wednesday from 10 a.m. to noon.  "We talk, we discuss paintings ... We decided to come here to paint en plein air," she said.

"Women become icons in colorful Nashua exhibit" by Nancy Tuttle. THE SUN, Thursday, March 24, 2005 Mark Vatalaro calls them the stained glass women, the brilliantly colored female images that Marilene Sawaf paints so profusely. Infused with a distinct almost Byzantine style, they are currently on display at his Bilancia Gallery, located at 85 west Pearl st. in Nashua. "I have her work on exhibit at all times, since she has a unique style that you very seldom find with local artists. It is influenced by an old world, Byzantine flavor that is distinctive. You always know it is her work," he said. Sawaf newest work is currently on display at the gallery through the end of April. Sawaf, who now lives in Nashua, fled the political unrest in her native Egypt to Italy, where she said she fell in love with stained glass windows and medieval art. Other influences include Oriental rugs and flowers. "Her work has a slightly religious feel to it , but it is also very elegant and peaceful," said Vatalaro.

THE TELEGRAPH. AUGUST 17, 2004 Review by June Lemen."Fell in love at recent art show" "We wandered through the show until we found the booth she was looking for. The artist, Marilene Sawaf, had two different styles of art displayed:abstract, impressionistic landscapes, and paintings that were like the images in medieval-and Renaissance-illuminated manuscripts, but somehow modern and full of creative energy, which she calls "Flower Ladies." Both Kathleen and I loved all her work, and Kathleen decided to buy the landscape she had first noticed. I was struck by the "Flower Ladies " the first time we walked by, and started looking again while Kathleen was making her purchase. Yes, I am weak. I succumbed. I had to have it. I bought the "Flower Lady" painting."

THE TELEGRAPH. MAY18, 2004 "Sawaf's artful journey" by Michaelina Della Fera. "From Egypt to Italy to Lebanon to Nashua, artist draws on variety of inspirations." Marilene Sawaf arrived in the United States by a very circuitous route. Born in Egypt, her family was forced to flee during a period of socialist revolution. The Sawaf family moved to Italy and Marilene fell in love with medieval art and stained glass windows. After another move, this time to Lebanon, Sawaf lived with her grandmother and became enamored with all the paintings hanging in her house. "My grandmother had beautiful paintings of stained -glass windows hanging throughout the house," she recalls. Additionally, there was a huge stained glass window in the foyer. "I remember it being as big as a church wall and the light would flow through it. I used to dream about it all the time."

THE TELEGRAPH,MARCH 3, 2003 Sawaf's first series of women was created in 1981 after moving to New England. "The ladies "were painted with watercolor or acrylic and inspired by a luminous stained glass window that used to cover an entire wall of her grandmother's wall in Egypt. She later introduced new elements in her paintings such as flowers in the women's dresses. The women would be dreaming in different settings made of tiled landscapes and diffused vegetation. The women's hands, the intriguing expressions of their faces and the mystery of their environment create a surrealistic image. "A product of my past culture, of my present taste for rich colors and enigmatic effects, my paintings of women are a mysterious reflection of my most subconscious dreams,"Sawaf said.

THE TELEGRAPH. JUNE 2 , 2002 "Artistic pearls." Review by Ellen Grimm. Telegraph correspondent Marilene Sawaf's "Pink Tree" is another take on the pastoral, with its rush of pink that creates the impression of watching a scene from a speeding car. The flowering trees and surrounding grass seem caught in a paroxysm of wind, energizing an otherwise serene scene.

"EGYPTIAN QUEENS ON DISPLAY" THE TELEGRAPH FEBRUARY 24, 2000 by Michael Martinelli There is a bold, inconclusive statement being mad about the women in her artwork. Sawaf like Sakellarios , continues to grab audiences with their surrealism and ambiguity. "Their work is very complimentary," says Mary Ann List , library Director at the Amherst Town Public library. The colors and approach used in both artists' artwork clearly allows their subjects to be seen, which at times is undefinable.

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH. MAY 17, 1998 "Illusions from the Mediterranean." Currently on display at the Image Gallery on the middle floor of the Nashua Public Library is the colorful work of Marilene Sawaf. The display includes paintings of women, rich with bright colors and designs taken from the Mediterranean. Heavily influenced by her heritage, she was born in Egypt and raised in Italy and Lebanon, Sawaf tries to create an illusion, painting women in rich patterned dresses who make you wonder who they are and what they are doing. The position of the women's hands, the intriguiguing expressions of their faces, the mystery of their environment, combine to create a surrealistic image.

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH,SEPTEMBER 29,1996.An Eclectic Mix by Diane Rietman. Marilene Sawaf's art is a blend of bright colors and designs taken from the Mediterranean. Born in Egypt and raised in Italy and Lebanon, she has combined traditional techniques of the countries where she has lived to create her style. Her tall, slim "ladies," as she calls the series of paintings of women, have the influence of African and Egyptian art, of the Middle East from the fabric designs and architecture, and of Italian landscapes in the window scenes that are the background of much of her work.

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH . February 5, 1995 By Stacy Milbouer "The title of this year's Nashua Art Association February show at the Chandler Library is "Color and Energy, " and in many instances the show lives up to its name. In the case of oil painter Marilene Sawaf's two entries that is certainly true. Her "Summer Colors" and "Summer Garden" are rife with both color and energy. It's the former that really defines the artist, who uses color as if it were a subject matter in and of itself. "Summer Colors" shows a farmhouse from the perspective of the walkway in front of it. It's as if the viewer were walking by the house in summer on such a bright day that they must squint his or her eyes leaving the scene rendered in hazy shapes of color--in this case vivid purple, orange, green and yellow."

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH . April 24,1994 By Stacy Milbouer "The same could be said for Marlene's Sawaf's oil painting "When Flowers Bloom," which took first place in works not under glass.This is probably the best piece in the show, and of itself constitutes a good reason to visit the center. The painting is alive with color that seems to have seeped up from a flourishing garden and through the canvas. But the artist didn't stop at color. The subjects of this piece--the flowers--truly take on a life of their own. They aren't real flowers but are not totally imagined either. The spherical swirls of color are more like a composite of what flowers look like and what wonder they evoke. In a clever manipulation of perspective, Sawaf gives the majority of the painting's weight to the fantastic blooms, while the home they adorn seems to tip over to get out of their way".

*THE TELEGRAPH.August 1992.*"The painter behind the painting".Review by Judith Bennett. The Telegraph correspondent. ......." Marilene Sawaf was one of these talented imports and bring an unusual depth of life experience to her profession as an oil painter. Born in Egypt and raised in Italy for eight years before the move to Beirut, Sawaf spent five of her 15 year in Lebanon surrounded by war. "I was in my twenties at that time and we just couldn't do many of the things that kids do here," she said. "We absolutely couldn't go out at night for example. There was not much television and it was difficult to have friends around a lot of the time. "We moved a lot and there were always different languages to deal with, so I never had the freedom and friends that my children have now. I had a lot of time to read and to paint." The daughter of a sculptor and an engineer, Sawaf began to paint at age 6, taking art correspondence courses from Paris and studying painting in her free time. After six years at St Esprit University in Beirut she graduated with degrees in architecture and interior design. When Sawaf and her husband settled in Nashua 12 years ago, however, she took up her paints again and immediately joined the Nashua Art Association. "I had these college degrees from Lebanon," she explains," but when we came over here I couldn't do those things at first because I wasn't an American citizen and I didn't have the right work permit. So, I started painting in the meantime, and I haven't stopped

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH . February 1993 By Staci Milbouer. "Sawaf's dreamlike images show a singular figure of a woman in the foreground -her body formed by a lush flower. The woman stares at the vision of the other women in sets of twos or threes, semingly attached to each other like Siamese twins and triplets. There is a statement being made her about femininity, womanhood and the world of dreams which is refreshing in a show that's a little light on messages."

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH . APRIL 26, 1992 By Staci Milbouer. Marilene Sawaf's oil painting "Friendship," is an intriguing portrait of women.The artist uses tribal- like fiigures dancing in a sea of tiny circles to make a statement about the long history of female bonding".

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH . FEBRUARY 16, 1992 By Cynthia Jones. "Among the oils, the works of Marilena Sawaf is noted for her spirited style. She uses loose and easy brush strokes to imbue "Nashua landscape" with personality. The style is even more pronounced in her picture "Entering the Garden".

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH . FEBRUARY 10, 1991 By Staci Milbouer. "Artist Marilene Sawaf and Dana Malcom also chose landscape to express their point of view. Sawaf's "Martha's Vineyard "has a fresh, relaxed feeling with its broad strokes and pleasing colors."