Rana Jubara
Artist, Photographer and Graphic Designer
There’s no better way of celebrating the month of November than with a work by the gifted and versatile Qatar-based Sudanese artist, photographer and graphic designer, Rana Jubara. Her piece, The Old Tambur Player, below, inspired by Picasso’s The Old Guitar Player, is one of several re-workings of famous paintings by Rana, who overwrites their familiar lexicon with elements that are fresh, arresting and quintessentially Sudanese.
The Old Tambur Player is November’s featured work in The 2022 Calendar, 12 ilustradores celebran la cultura sudanesa (cover below), a creative initiative by Embajada de España en Sudán / Spanish Embassy Sudan in collaboration with Zain, Sudan Savannah and The Muse Multi Studios.
Learn more about the eloquent symbolism of the Sudanese tambour in:
Below, just a taster of Rana’s inspiring and socially committed portfolio. Tune in next month for In Conversation with Rana to discover more about this talented, multilingual artist who references both contemporary and traditional Sudanese cultural iconography with a fresh international edge.
“Rana belongs to a multi-talented family, and the talent to produce extraordinary art ran in her veins growing up. She saw almost all of her cousins and siblings drawing beautiful art and mesmerizing calligraphy (see her brother, Assim Jubara’s Iqoona) which served as a source of motivation and an aspiration for her to pursue her natural talent.”
Rana Jubara – The Epitome of Hard Work
Rana Jubara – The Epitome of Hard Work
Below, gently subverted folk art images of Sudanese women bearing the tribal facial scarring of older generations (top right) vie with glossy, futuristic digital self-portraits (top left). In Rana’s take on The Kiss, the red and gold silk garmasis of Sudanese jertig wedding rites tenderly envelops a bridegroom and his bride, who swoons at his side, her upturned soles revealing lacy hennaed wedding tattoos.
Rana’s series of Russian Matryoshka dolls (bottom right) celebrate the traditional white toub and gama boba earrings beloved by haboubas young and old, as Rana explains above, and now seen as intrinsic to the gendered symbolism of the social and political events of the past three years. They also urge us (centre right) to contemplate with compassion the suffering of child brides everywhere. Among her sets of elegant playing cards, some (bottom left) feature the patched red and green robes of Sudanese Sufi mystics and their thousand bead rosaries.
Join me next month to get to know better this highly successful young creative and her work.
Women's literacy in Sudan 
Another extraordinarily rich explorati
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