Xzibtit HERCULES art Gallery  
SECOND EXHIBIT@ IBTRANSLATEIT
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NACERA GUERIN: An Artist with Many Heartening Causes by Ihsan Bouabid

From the moment one meets Nacéra Guerin, the word that comes to mind is: energy.  An artist in her early forties, she spreads around her strength and enthusiasm, especially when she introduces her works. "Me too, I have a dream. I believe that nobody should forget his or her dreams. I live mine," she says with a soft but fast-paced and polished English that hints she also writes poetry, applying it to her paintings.      

 Native of Algeria, North Africa, she grew up in France and came to the United States in 1995. Painting on acrylic since 2000, she already has an impressive collection of more that 100 paintings in her studio in Saratoga, in the heart of Silicon Valley, California. Particularly proud of being a woman, she scrutinizes with deep emotions and sometimes, rage, the numerous ill-treatments and mixed feelings towards those who constitute 'half the sky'.       

Her paintings celebrate womanhood in every corner of the present world, be it in war zones, in our inner cities and suburbs, or in places where women are silenced if not brutalized or killed just because of their gender. Through pieces such as "My Africa, Your San Francisco," "The Unknown Child/AIDS", "Perfect Imperfection," "After Rape" and "Justice" among others, Nacéra breaks down stereotypes, raises awareness and points her finger at the  world's many imbalances.     

  "Because of my decision to paint or sculpt difficult subjects, the consequences could be devastating for me. Therefore I need a balance in my work. So, I paint as well my happiness, fear, etc," stresses Nacéra. "I try any or every medium I can find and use them. I call this experience 'discovery' because I never know what the medium is going to give me. I am always surprised by what I see. I use acrylic, oil, gouache, ink, collage and so many other medium. It depends on what is there when I start."       

Furthermore, a 6 mn video untitled "Me too, I have a dream," evocatively documenting her life and artistic vision, was produced in March 2003 by Salima Ceret. It was the first short film mentored through the Academy of Converging Arts, founded by French filmmaker Daniele J. Suissa at The International Film Academy in Hollywood.     

An active member of Amnesty International for many years, Nacéra is a fierce advocate when it comes to stopping violence against women. Not afraid of numbers and statistics, she stresses that there are nearly one billion women worldwide who will be beaten, coerced into sex, forced into marriage or prostitution or otherwise abused in their lifetimes. "Violence and war. Either you are against or for. You cannot be neutral," says Nacéra for whom art is "a weapon against ignorance and hatred and an agent of awareness-raising."       Quoting AI's current campaign on the issue, the painter praises prominent female leaders such as Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Myanmar and 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for using non violent means to challenge the military junta ruling her country from either prison or house arrest for 10 of the past 15 years.       

Mother of two, Nacéra shares her time between her work, family and volunteer activities in her area. "I've particularly liked the contact with the children when I was organizer of the Art Program (Sept 2003-May 2004) in Saratoga's Foothill School to educate children on the importance of art and the gift it can bring to them," says Nacera.      

 Furthermore, Nacéra's personality, works and tireless call for more justice for women and children did not go unnoticed in the United States, where she was invited to exhibit (solo) at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Stanford University, in Palo Alto (CA), from June to the end of September 2005; nor in Europe, where she has been nominated to participate in the Fifth Annual Biennale Internazionale dell' Arte Contemporanea de Firenze (Italy) from the 3rd to the 11th of next December. Since its inauguration in 1997, more than 2000 artists have participated in the Florence Biennale, recognized by the United Nations as an official partner in the program "Dialogue among Civilizations." (ends/IB/2005)