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.
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.
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.
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.