Joe Sioufi
Joe Sioufi is a Canadian artist / photographer and painter
Early years
Joe Sioufi started painting at a very young age. He studied Decorative Arts at Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) in Beirut, Lebanon. He continued his education in Montreal's Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) from where he graduated with a Bachelor degree in Urban Planning followed by a Masters degree in Project Management in Université de Montréal.
Career
While he lived in Montreal, Canada, he had a career in artistic, lifestyle and journalistic photography, most notably as photographer for Phoenicia Montreal weekly. He also made a famous series of photoshoots of Montreal sculptor and artist Armand Vaillancourt writing an article about him in 31 January 2008 issue of Phoenicia newspaper.
Sioufi exposed at "Passions & Teintes" event through his art work "Orange Woman" alongside other Montreal artists including Armand Vaillancourt, Zilon, Yvon Goulet, Katia Coric and more. Joe Sioufi's collaboration with the Bad Boy Club Montréal (BBCM) and the Montreal nightlife led him to meet one of the most famous drag queens in Quebec, Mado Lamotte and he did a series of Montreal drag queens exclusive photoshoots including Mado Lamotte. Joe photographed Canada's beauty queens in 2008 and political events. He also was a performer/dancer at the Black and Blue Festival main events in 2002 and 2004 and he had been organizing parties with Robert Vézina BBCM events. Now based in Houston, Texas, he writes a regular column in the Examiner.com site about Houston cultural events.
Joe Sioufi has also done work in front of the camera as well, by modelling and posing for various magazines. He has appeared as a model on the cover of Montreal publication Guide in its 2001 annual issue on the occasion for the Black and Blue festivities. He also appeared in a special feature in This Week in Texas (TWT) and made its cover in 2007 as well the cover of Hot magazine in Houston, Texas. He is also involved in charity work, most notably with the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Influences
Joe grew up on the voice of Fairuz. His father Ghassan Sioufi, a civil engineer used to listen to her songs as he drove Joe and his sisters Lama and Rana Sioufi to school. Fairuz angelic voice was engraved in Joe's head and soul same as his father's philosophy about education, learning to be a better person in life. Joe's mother Mona Taouk was also a major influence in Joe's progress at school and in art, at a very young age she encouraged him to continue and do more art works and framed his paintings to make him feel special.
Joe Sioufi's sources of inspirations are based on the mythology, beauty, romance, eroticism and the ambiguity with a mix of sensuality and compassion in his style. His art works are a celebration of Love, Life and Humanity, presenting the contrast between light and dark, joy and sorrow, freedom and slavery; so they are made in a way to make us ask questions, provoke thoughts and takes us on an emotional journey. He claims provocation is his business and education too. His major positive influences came from the famous singer Madonna Ciccone, artists Claude Monet and Tamara De Lempicka, the architects Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, Lebanese diva Fairuz and the Catholic nuns that ran the school he used to go to as a child, École des Soeurs de Saint-Coeur (Achrafieh).