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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.