" These works, dating from my return to Canada in 1997, represent my readjustment to life in Vancouver after a very long absence. [...] I chose to design furniture because I could not find contemporary items that linked my Islamic carpet and my computer table, nor could I find passages within my own mind that connected the two worlds of experience. It made sense to adopt the Islamic philosophy of art, which unites the functional with the aesthetic, and to explore plain geometry and colour, because I needed time to remember and time to forget.

The panels were painted by hand in what felt like an eternity, but they were cut by machine in moments. The ritual of transition was complete. "

Liliane Karnouk was born in Cairo in 1944, and is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, the Université du Québec à Montréal and the University of British Columbia (MA, 1971). She lived and worked in Europe, Egypt and Eastern Canada while maintaining her home base in Vancouver. In 1980, she returned to Egypt, where she initiated an art program at the American University in Cairo and published two books on contemporary Egyptian art.

Liliane Karnouk's art originated in her fascination with plants as symbols and also as materials. In her paintings and installation work, she has explored a variety of techniques, ranging from the ancient art of plant-fibre papermaking to macro-propagation of plant cells in vitro. In an exhibition held at the British Museum, she surrounded an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus with a date palm grove. The trees, cloned from Nilotic originals, were displayed in their test tubes. This work earned her a fellowship in art and science from the National Gallery of Canada in 1996.

More recently, Liliane Karnouk has been approaching art from an Eastern perception, combining the aesthetics of symmetry and floral interlacing with the functionality of applied arts. Her screens and tables derive from her fascination with the integrative potential of Islamic design, into which she weaves European medieval and Amerindian forms to create a fusion with her Canadian experiences: These works, dated from my return to Canada in 1997, represented my readjustment to life in Vancouver after a very long absence. They mark the transition between the mind-stretching geometric puzzles of Islamic designs, which framed my Egyptian existence, and my sudden exposure to the possibilities offered by computerized drills, among a range of recent and challenging technologies available in Vancouver. The choice of designing furniture was made because I could not find contemporary items which linked my Islamic carpet and my computer table, or passages within my own mind which connected the two worlds of experience. It made sense to adopt the Islamic philosophy of art which united the functional with the aesthetic, and to explore plain geometry and colour, because I needed time to remember and to forget. The panels were hand-painted in what felt like an eternity, but they were cut by a machine in moments. The ritual of transition was complete.

Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions in Egypt, Germany, Italy, France and the United States.