Thrilled to be participating for the second time in the Abu Dhabi Art Fair, Special Projects section. We will be showcasing the works of Egyptian artists Sabah Naim, Marwa Talaat, & Alaa Ayman.

Sabah Naim
Sabah Naim (b. 1967) is an Egyptian artist based in Cairo, holding a BFA, a MFA, and a Ph.D. from the College of Art Education in Cairo (2003) and presently serving as an Assistant Professor. Her work is characterized by a unique perspective and a distinctive visual language that challenges traditional norms, spanning from the reworking of images to embroidery. Naim employs an array of mediums such as fabrics, newspapers, and threads and she also
incorporates photography, needlework, and hand-painted patterns into her work, transforming simple materials into rich, complex, and yet delicate surfaces.

In this series, Naim investigates Cairo's everyday life through images appropriated either from newspapers or from photographs made by the artist herself throughout the streets of her city. These images were then printed on paper and enriched with symbols pertaining to the culture and decorative arts of the Middle East, urban architecture, the labyrinth of the casbahs, and the arabesques of the moldings that decorate the mosques. In her works, the object of investigation is undoubtedly the alternation between silence and dialogue, the exchange between narrated image and effaced image. Naim manages to capture significant moments of the stream of life around her by focusing on the sacred quality of a moment stolen from consciousness and underlines how valuable this moment is through the juxtaposition of the image with its negative counterpart.

Marwa Talaat
Marwa Talaat is an Egyptian contemporary artist whose work explores the societal and political issues of her generation, reflecting the realities faced by modern women. Her artistic practice encompasses a wide range, from intricate installations to vibrant paintings that emphasize the power of colour and visual storytelling, all interwoven with a feminine touch using fabrics and threads.

Marwa holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in Art Education (2015) and a Diploma in Art Criticism from the Academy of Arts (2002). She has participated in numerous Youth Salon courses from 2003 to 2007, as well as exhibitions such as the National General Exhibition in 2015 and 2017. She has also showcased her works in both solo and group exhibitions at the Al Jazeera Arts Center (2004), the Ahmed Shawqi Museum (2007), the Egyptian Embassy in New Delhi (2009), Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art (2018), Picasso Art Gallery (2023), among others.

Thrilled to participate in the 2024 edition of Menart Fair in Paris, France! For its 5th edition, Menart will focus exclusively on the women's art scene in MENA, examining the legacy of pioneering female artists and highlighting contemporary and emerging female creators. We will present works by Alaa Ayman, Rania Ezzat, and Sabah Naim.

Alaa Ayman
Alaa Ayman (b.1995) is a painter and video artist based in Cairo. She graduated from Fine Arts in 2018 and further pursued Visual Arts at Studio Khana for Contemporary Art and Cultural Development in Cairo.

Alaa's painting process centers on building layers, working with oil to add, subtract, and blur. Most of her work is inspired by memories, stories, and even events, aiming to create her own mythology—a means of reconnecting her personal narrative with collective memory. She is deeply interested in human relations and enjoys observing people and listening to their stories. Drawn to the painterly quality of colors created by old film cameras, amateur lighting, as well as the informal postures of figures, she collects various items such as old photos, letters, tapes, negatives, etc. These diverse images collectively create a cast of characters and a narrative to draw from.

Rania Ezzat
Rania Ezzat (b.1975) received her Academic diploma in Classical Drawing and Engraving in 1998, followed by a Contemporary Visual Art diploma in 2007 from ‘HEAD’ (Haute Ecole d’ Art et de Design, formally ‘ESBA’; Haute Ecole des Beaux-Arts) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Rania’s approach evolved significantly from her early classical works as her practice shifted towards a more conceptual and contemporary style, incorporating performance and installation. She started participating in exhibitions while simultaneously working in contemporary art institutions, specifically in gallery management, mentoring, and curating. Her work matured further upon receiving her Visual Art diploma in 2007 and moving to Dubai, where she explored socio-political themes influenced by her new environment in the UAE. Returning to her hometown of Cairo in 2012, she adopted a more global and holistic approach to both life and art. Rania's diverse body of work includes drawing, painting, poetry, installation, and live performance, exhibited in Egypt and abroad. .

We are thrilled to announce our first participation in the MIA Photo Fair in Milan. Our booth will showcase works by the Egyptian artists: Sabah Naim, Najla Said, & Ruwan Hamdy.

Sabah Naim
Sabah Naim (b. 1967) is an Egyptian artist based in Cairo, holding a BFA, a MFA, and a Ph.D. from the College of Art Education in Cairo (2003) and presently serving as an Assistant Professor. Her work is characterized by a unique perspective and a distinctive visual language that challenges traditional norms, spanning from the reworking of images to embroidery. Naim employs an array of mediums such as fabrics, newspapers, and threads and she also
incorporates photography, needlework, and hand-painted patterns into her work, transforming simple materials into rich, complex, and yet delicate surfaces.

In this series, Naim investigates Cairo's everyday life through images appropriated either from newspapers or from photographs made by the artist herself throughout the streets of her city. These images were then printed on paper and enriched with symbols pertaining to the culture and decorative arts of the Middle East, urban architecture, the labyrinth of the casbahs, and the arabesques of the moldings that decorate the mosques. In her works, the object of investigation is undoubtedly the alternation between silence and dialogue, the exchange between narrated image and effaced image. Naim manages to capture significant moments of the stream of life around her by focusing on the sacred quality of a moment stolen from consciousness and underlines how valuable this moment is through the juxtaposition of the image with its negative counterpart.

Ruwan Hamdy
Ruwan Hamdy (b. 1995) is an architect and interdisciplinary artist based in Alexandria. She mainly works with photography as a medium and likes to apply a variety of experimental approaches in her work (mixed media, audio, visual, AR, & installations). She is interested in the broad intersection between architecture, art, and design.

Stigma, as Goffman described it, is the process where the reaction of others spoils the identity of the self and leaves the person feeling tainted and out of place. This project explores how differently men and women perceive social stigma in our community and how it affects their self-image in the process. Stigma goes beyond the community, society standards and straight through self-concept. In this project, she tries to confront some social norms and stereotypes that present in our society, by creating a visual conversation between the male and female gaze on social stigma and most importantly, create an image to recognize the effect of stigma on one’s self.

We are thrilled to participate for the third consecutive year in the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, one of the most vibrant platforms for contemporary art, showcasing works by Essam Alaa, Ahmed Lesi, and Adel El Siwi.

Essam Alaa
Essam Alaa is a young self-taught artist who lives and works in Cairo. He first worked as a journalist for sport magazines, then he shifted to a freer and more poetic form of writing mostly focused on his paintings. Through his work, Alaa sets out on a journey exploring the human condition with a special focus on gender issues. He tries to escape reality, cling to hope in life, and reach inner freedom through nature and bright, explosive colors. Some of his paintings depict men as frozen machines holding deep and volatile feelings within them. Other paintings of his convey a sense of instability, as it appears a tightrope is floating above it without balance as if in close proximity of death, which gives one the impetus to search, discover, and learn with a new outlook on life. This makes every painting different from the other, even as if in a new state. Each painting tells a story with incredible events, actions,
and small details tying together the different parts of the artwork.

Ahmed Lesi
Based in Cairo, Ahmed Lesi (b. 1995) is a multidisciplinary Egyptian artist who specializes in contemporary art and pop art. He creates satirical depictions of everyday Egyptian life and social issues using collage, photomontage, and painting. Lesi has participated in numerous local and international exhibitions since 2014. He produced his first solo exhibition in 2019, titled “Enter My Private Place,” followed by the exhibition “All Eyes on Me,” produced in collaboration with Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art in 2022.

In this collection of paintings, Lesi explores the questionable side of the ego’s mediation. What happens when the line is blurred between our desire for connection and being seen, and what is socially acceptable? The characters in Lesi’s paintings are self-absorbed, considering themselves the center of the universe, seeing themselves everywhere and
making everything about themselves. The scenes that he produced are based upon photographs of social events, which are part of a personal archive of photos that he collected himself, and which directly affected him as
they are pictures of friends, families, and familiar spaces. His satirically critical paintings echo a particular visual language and format of images that has become familiar and normalized on social media platforms. In his works, the line between sharing or connecting with others and excessively celebrating oneself has thinned, and images that seem ‘normal’ start to reveal the underlying glitch in this mediation. As a global wave of wellness culture encourages self-love for mental well-being, Lesi’s characters challenge the existence of a line at all.

Adel El Siwi
Adel El Siwi, one of Egypt's foremost and highly influential contemporary artists, is renowned for his mastery of monumental faces. His distinctive and deeply personal painting technique, combined with a relentless evolution of narrative skills and an unwavering belief in painting's capacity to give birth to new worlds, gives rise to a body of work that is simultaneously intensely sensual and conceptually lucid—a veritable manifesto of contemporary painting. El Siwi’s colorful large canvases are equipped with a dazzling interior light as if proclaiming a revelation, each telling a full story of its own. El Siwi sets up a fine network of cultured citations drawn from literature, cinema, and art history. Several private collections and museums hold his acquisitions, such as the British Museum in London, UK, The Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi, UAE,  the IMA in Paris, France, and Mathaf in Doha, Qatar.

Thrilled to announce our first participation in the Abu Dhabi Art Fair. We will be showcasing works by Egyptian artists Marwan El Gamal and Rawan Abbas, as well as Cairo-based Yemeni artist Amr Al Ngmah.

Marwan El Gamal
Born in 1990, Marwan El Gamal is an Egyptian contemporary artist. His interdisciplinary practice spans painting, animation, and text with an interest in the loss of the familiar through imagined storytelling and alternate remembrance through which he seeks to explore coherent narratives of the identity of the self and society by disrupting these anchor points of recognition. Interested in the drives of culture and how images, stories, and traditions instill identity, he draws from history, mythology, pop culture, archetypes and personal memory and
allows for fluid interchangeability between them. Invoking the mysterious, the uncanny and otherworldly, his work depicts realms outside of recognizable locations and time, alternative maps for the viewer to experience novel connections with themselves and the world. The work seeks to place an indefiniteness to events, where change is constant, addressing contradiction and resolution, familiarity and foreignness.

Rawan Abbas
Rawan Abbas is an Egyptian, Cairo-based, mixed-media artist. She has a BA from the Faculty of Applied Arts - Helwan University where she initially studied drawing and painting. Her work is informed by her Egyptian heritage, the vast body of visual and literary works available to her, and the accumulation of culture and beliefs that shape society and,
consequently–her experiences as a young woman in the 21st century. Rawan isn't governed by a certain medium or discipline, she's constantly looking for the right expression for every unique concept.

Her artistic practice aims to turn private instances into collective experiences. She draws inspiration from a variety of sources; embodied experiences, her heritage, her country’s history, and stories, to name a few. She works with textiles and fiber to create tapestries and installations. She paints, embroiders, and manipulates the fabric to create her tapestries while her installations tend to utilise crochet and macrame making. Her use of those materials is intentional as they have a history in almost all cultures, and they connect her to many of the women who took up and developed textile crafts. Rawan further explains: “Fabrics are familiar objects I interact with daily; they drape over my body, they cover surfaces in my house, they are containers of memory and intent. They are objects we have collectively formed an understanding of, for example, how they’re used to project societal and economic status. This intimate relationship makes them an ideal medium for my work."

Amr Al Ngmah
Amr Al Ngmah is a Yemeni artist born in Alexandria, Egypt and currently living in Cairo. A self-taught artist, he started painting at a young age and became increasingly interested in experimenting with different materials, from the traditional to the digital. He uses software programs and hardware computer parts to study the relationship between the digital age, community, architecture, culture, religion, science, and medicine, and their resulting impact
both analytically and descriptively.

Al Ngmah uses electronic circuits from various devices and computers (such as motherboards, ICs, and CPUs). He collects, dismantles, studies, and recycles them in his artwork while maintaining their electronic properties. By liberating them from their original functions, he introduces them into concepts and dimensions that fit into his artistic vision, for it is the beauty of ideas that he relies on. Additionally, he has a special interest in conceptual work, installation, and digital media that reflect the culture of the region and his personal vision.

We are incredibly excited to participate for the second time in this uniquely vibrant event, which every year brings color and dynamism to the international contemporary art scene. This year, we will be dedicating out booth entirely to the renowned Egyptian artist Adel El Siwi.

Widely known for his monumental faces, Adel El Siwi’s impressive and deeply personal painting technique combined
with his ability to continuously update his narrative skills, as well as his unshakable faith in the possibility of giving birth to new worlds by means of painting, give birth to a body of work that is at the same time strongly sensual and conceptually lucid. El Siwi’s colorful large canvases are equipped with a dazzling interior light as if proclaiming a revelation, each telling a full story of its own. El Siwi sets up a fine network of cultured citations drawn from literature, cinema, and art history. Several private collections and museums hold his acquisitions, such as the British Museum in London, UK, The Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi, UAE,  the IMA in Paris, France, and Mathaf in Doha, Qatar.

Mashrabia Gallery goes to Cape Town! We are so excited to announce our first participation in the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, where, within a vibrant African and international context, we will present a selection of work by some of our greatest artists: Adel El Siwi, Hazem El Mestikawy, Najla Said, & Xavier Puigmarti.

Adel El Siwi
Widely known for his monumental faces, Adel El Siwi’s impressive and deeply personal painting technique combined
with his ability to continuously update his narrative skills, as well as his unshakable faith in the possibility of giving birth to new worlds by means of painting, give birth to a body of work that is at the same time strongly sensual and conceptually lucid. El Siwi’s colorful large canvases are equipped with a dazzling interior light as if proclaiming a revelation, each telling a full story of its own. El Siwi sets up a fine network of cultured citations drawn from literature, cinema, and art history. Several private collections and museums hold his acquisitions, such as the British Museum in London, UK, The Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi, UAE,  the IMA in Paris, France, and Mathaf in Doha, Qatar.
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Xavier Puigmarti
Xavier Puigmartí lives and works between the Fayoum oasis in Egypt and Barcelona (Spain), where he was born in 1952. Fundamentally a painter, his art production also spans audiovisual creation and animation.  Talking about his art, Puigmartí says: "The history of painting exhibits various ways to portray a garden. I drew my inspiration from ancient Egyptian paintings and Juan Miro’s famous “La Masia” (The Farm). In both, I found an intense love of nature and care for details: a flower might be a star, an insect, a god, an ant equal to a mountain." Varying from large oil, small oil, and pencil on paper paintings as well as some collages, his pieces delicately enclose tiny but important details capturing the essence of the landscape as he perceives it. He has held several exhibitions worldwide, such as in Switzerland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, South Africa and Egypt. 

Participating for the 4th year in the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair London 2021, Mashrabia is proud to be presenting the work of four emerging Egyptian female artists: Sara Ayman, Rawan Abbas, Najla Said, & Sabah Naim. 

Sara Ayman
Born in 1996, Sara is an Egyptian multimedia artist. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Applied Arts from the New Cairo Academy, with a specialization in Graphic Design. The artist made her debut in the contemporary Art world at the All-Girl exhibition “My Favourite Things 5” held at Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art with a piece titled “Me Too” which tackled the theme of sexual harassment in Egypt. Within just a few days, the artwork went viral on the internet, which contributed to spark a debate around the issue of harassment in the country, where many Egyptian
men and women took part.

Very different is the series we will present at 1-54: "We Are Not Talking About It". This series is not political or militant at all; it’s a series of pages shaped as a personal diary accompanying the artist’s journey, navigating her most intimate daily thoughts. Sara’s work pushes us to consider that what is most personal is also what is most universal; nothing human is strange to another human. Like the American psychologist Carl Rogers summarizes it: “What is most
personal is most general”. 

Rawan Abbas
Rawan Abbas is an Egyptian, Cairo-based, mixed-media artist. She has a BA from the Faculty of Applied Arts - Helwan University where she initially studied drawing and painting. Her work is informed by her Egyptian heritage, the vast body of visual and literary works available to her, and the accumulation of culture and beliefs that shape society and,
consequently – her experiences as a young woman in the 21st century. Rawan isn't governed by a certain medium or discipline, she's constantly looking for the right expression for every unique concept.

Her artistic practice aims to turn private instances into collective experiences. She draws inspiration from a variety of sources; embodied experiences, her heritage, her country’s history, and stories, to name a few. She works with textiles and fiber to create tapestries and installations. She paints, embroiders, and manipulates the fabric to create her tapestries while her installations tend to utilise crochet and macrame making. Her use of those materials is intentional as they have a history in almost all cultures, and they connect her to many of the women who took up and developed textile crafts. Rawan further explains: “Fabrics are familiar objects I interact with daily; they drape over my body, they cover surfaces in my house, they are containers of memory and intent. They are objects we have collectively formed an understanding of, for example, how they’re used to project societal and economic status. This intimate relationship makes them an ideal medium for my work."

Najla Said
Born in 1999, Najla Said is a photographer. The series Sister, Oh Sister "أختي يا أختي" is a photographic series exploring a first-person account of the experience of womanhood in Cairo. The series recontextualizes extracted elements within the Egyptian vernacular culture, in order to create alternative representations of womanhood. Each photograph questions the validity of the components of “so-called” femininity, which are inevitably reinforced by the subconscious, established, quasi-dictatorial patriarchal norms. From the personified role hair plays in Arab communities, as a means to govern feminine comportment and belittle the essence of womanhood, to the consumption of the female body by the gaze, as well as to the empowerment sisterhood can offer as a safe space for women to exist. "Sister, Oh Sister" intends to provoke the categories Arab women have been limited to painfully squeezing in, and create a decolonized space for self-representation, self-definition, and self-validation.

Sabah Naim
Sabah Naim (b.1967) is an Egyptian artist based in Cairo, holding a BFA, a MFA, and a PhD from the College of Art Education in Cairo (2003) and presently serving as an Assistant Professor.

Her work is characterized by a unique perspective and a distinctive visual language that challenges traditional norms, spanning from the reworking of images to embroidery. Naim employs an array of mediums such as fabrics, newspapers, and threads and she also incorporates photography, needlework, and hand-painted patterns into her work, transforming simple materials into rich, complex, and yet delicate surfaces.

Showcased in numerous solo and group exhibitions both in Egypt and internationally, Sabah Naim’s diverse body of work notably includes presentations at the Venice Biennale, the Alexandria Biennale, and the Havana Biennale. She has exhibited in galleries such as Lia Rumma in Italy, and Hayward Gallery in London, as well as in institutions like the Centre Pompidou and the Kunst Museum in Bonn. Naim’s artworks have become part of the permanent collections of esteemed institutions, such as the British Museum in London, the Museum of Modern Egyptian Art in Cairo, and the Egyptian Ministry of Culture in Cairo.

Hazem El Mestikawy
Swiss-Egyptian visual artist Hazem El Mestikawy was born in Egypt in 1965 and currently lives between Cairo and Alexandria. His work ingeniously assimilates both ancient Egyptian and Islamic art and architecture, as well as contemporary minimal art philosophies, such as the Bauhaus. He has received international recognition in North Africa, Europe, and all over the world. In 2011, he was awarded the Jameel Prize recognising artists who explore traditional Islamic influences through contemporary art.
Hazem el Mestikawy’s practice moves between the realms of architecture, design, sculpture, and visual deception, and one of its intriguing aspects is the use of cardboard and cartonage paper-based materials to design installations that are environmentally sound and at the same time appear solid and impenetrable. The artist manipulates fragile materials, light and shadow, as well as volume and surrounding space, to design deceptively light forms, challenging the boundaries between the ephemerality of the material and the enduring nature of the artistic product.
In his most recent body of work, El Mestikawy puts into play a virtual mental combat between South-Oriental and North-Western forces. Scepters and forms from ancient to modern monarchies, symbolic emblems, crowns, and similarly inspired forms hanging on the wall raise questions regarding zones of power and influence. The designed codes of power embedded within the pieces symbolize the rise and fall of ideologies, empires, economies, wealth and power, where millions seem to follow, yet demonstrate the same helplessness. 

Heba Abu El Ella 
Born in 1993, Heba Abu El Ella is a promising emerging Egyptian visual artist and light designer. She graduated in 2017 from Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University, Egypt and took part in many group exhibitions in Egypt. 

The Boat is part of an ongoing installation project in which the artist carries out a very personal exploration to investigate her roots and the environment in which she was raised. Her work is deeply connected to African and Pharaonic history and heritage. The boat recalls the traditions of trade and transportation on the Nile, the hearth of ancient civilization, which has been held up to the ancient people as the source of all life in Egypt. The vessel also reflects the Ancient Egyptians' afterlife beliefs, having been the means for shipping the dead for burial, and thus becoming the symbolic means of transition to a different realm and state of being.

By intertwining copper wires and using ammonia and vinegar, Abu El Ella reinvents the techniques of metalworking present in the Fertile Crescent since a very early date with a contemporary flair. The volume, made of lots of lines with different thicknesses, gives shape to different spaces. The thick lines agglomerate into dark spots, while the thin ones resemble neurons or spider webs. Heba Abu El Ella’s evocative boat represents at the same time a place inside oneself, where lots of forgotten memories, worries, fears and wishes lie, and a place where the thread of history develops and recreates places that can't be found in everyday life anymore.  A whole new reality, made of tangible and intangible spaces, intermingling pasts and presents, unfolds.