Aida Touré is a Gabonese artist, Sufi poet, painter, and composer.[1]
Touré was born in Gabon to a Malian Muslim father and a Gabonese mother. She later attended high school in France where she generated a distinct interest across the arts.
In 1995, she moved to New York to study music. During this creative journey, she felt pulled toward the practice of Islam which was to have a profound impact on the nature of her creations. Sufism, the inner dimension of Islam inspired her to produce poetic works of a spiritual nature.
She released her first collection of Sufi poetry entitled Unmanifest Poems in 2000. In 2001, she published The Sublime Sphere. This was followed up in 2003 by another collection of poems, Nocturnal Light.
In 2005, while she was reflecting over one of her poems' Touré has professed to be overcome with images of ineffable beauty. This prompted her to take up painting to convert the spirituality in her poems into a visual landscape of beauty. She has referred to this art work as Visual Sufi Poetry.
Aida Touré exhibited her art work in many of the major cities throughout the United States and also back in her native Gabon. She was featured in a textbook that has been published in the US and Canada. She has appeared in magazines internationally.
The majority of her paintings are owned privately, mainly in the US, France, Gabon, and Mali. In 2010, in response to her audience's inquiries about smaller art pieces, the artist released "Fragrance of Light" an innovative jewelry line.