We are pleased to present our first modern exhibition in collaboration with George Al Ama and Amjad Ghannam, Essence of Egypt / عطر مصر - a presentation of Palestinian artistic journeys shaped in Egypt and inspired by its art and culture, featuring works by Nabil Anani (b. 1943), Samira Badran (b. 1954), Tayseer Barakat (b. 1959), Mostafa Al Hallaj (1938-2002), Kamel Al Moghani (1944-2008) and Abdul Rahman Al Muzayyen (b. 1943).
Spanning from the 1960s to the early 2000s, the works selected for the Essence of Egypt presentation reveal a diversity of media and approaches—ranging from printmaking and etching to mixed media, leather works, and large-scale compositions. Despite their shared educational background, each artist developed a distinct visual language, responding to contemporary events and experiences. Considered together, the works offer insight into the influence of mobility, exchange and experimentation on the formation of modern Arab art.
Nabil Anani’s tactile surfaces—often constructed using leather, natural pigments, and organic local materials—represent a deep connection to land, labor, and cultural memory. Our presentation includes rare leather and mixed media works from 1989 and 1988 produced during the early years of the Intifada.
Samira Badran engages with similar questions in her multidisciplinary practice. Her early etchings and mixed-media compositions, with their intricate and dizzying details, explore figuration, psychological interiority, immobility, and claustrophobia within the Palestinian context. The use of aquatint and lends these concerns a compelling visual intensity.
Often incorporating collage and found elements, Tayseer Barakat’s layered surfaces and material interventions register the passage of time, memory, and fragmentation. Our exhibition includes his earlier, more classical works as well as experimental pieces on wood and textile, created in the 1990s and 2010s.
Mostafa Al Hallaj’s striking print works and graphic cycles draw on mythology and collective history, creating layered compositions that function as visual archives of displacement and resistance. Graphic black and white linocut prints such as Lydd (1965), named after the historic Palestinian city, set a moving scene of martyrs rising from the land.
After most of his production was devastatingly lost in the recent Gaza war, Kamel Al Moghanni’s rare vivid mixed media compositions bridge figuration and abstraction through symbolic imagery and textured surfaces. During the 1980s and 1990s, the artist underwent a major evolution. Moving away from the pointed resistance symbols of his 1970s work (such as rifles and direct combatants), his paintings from this middle period transformed into a reflection of Palestinian folklore, cultural heritage, and symbolic steadfastness.
Abdul Rahman Al Muzayyen’s calligraphic works from the Anat & the Intifada and Al Asayel series, employ mythological figures and motifs to represent the enduring soul and fight of Palestine. As the protagonists in several of the pieces, the women’s traditional thobes serve as a painting within a painting, offering detailed storytelling.