Dahlia Elsayed - author and artist

Dahlia Elsayed's typewriter in her studio, NJ

Dahlia Elsayed in her studio, NJ

Newark Penn Station - Newark, NJ

A recent maiden voyage on New York's Newark bound PATH train took me to the studio of talented New Jersey based writer and map artist, Dahlia Elsayed.  Just back from Egypt, following her inclusion in the XII International Cairo Biennale, Dahlia's energy and optimism is contagious. The walls of her studios adorned with painted text leaves you in no doubt that the mapping of words, is central to her practise as an artist.  Perhaps then, I shouldn't have been surprised when she revealed to me the source of her paintings - autobiographic hand typed carbon copy done on an old typewriter permanently situated in her studio.  Edited down, she takes a word or a phrase to the painting relocating it within a new terrain, and in doing so plays with meaning, and to a larger extent, with the viewer, as one inevitably attempts to contextualise the words.  She is a rare talent and her work has an universal appeal.