Ahmad Hamid
March 31st - April19th, 2008

The exhibit aims at rooting Architecture & Design Culture in society as any kind of commodity is, this time with much more relevance to the artistic-socioeconomic life line of a place. It applies the quick readymade to the young and wide base public, and also the Haute design for exclusive and exquisite ends of the market. The exhibit exploits both the industrial and the hand made the past and present tempos and motifs. It is about simultaneity - not androgynous or hermaphroditic but with a yin-yang, anima/animus respect to both the masculine and the feminine in Design, Emotion & Function, Movement & Repose, the Populist & the Sophisticated, the Intellect & the Passions. It is an attempt at Synthesis but with a twist of visual seductively not a cold distant aesthetic pretending soberness. It is not eclectic but is inclusive though still spare, certain strength from the interrelatedness and multilayer of its design process. Stark and pristinely present, the artistic renderings of the designs exhibited radiate from within luminosity and a primordial instinctive untainted purity that borders on the humorous. For I wish every visitor/onlooker to my visuals and objects, to bear a smile, at least while in the show and even maybe later with a slight subtle aftertaste.

Cherif Sobhi

January  10th - January 25th 2008
 
Following the success of his first show in 1960, Sherif Sobhi has become a contributor to oneman & group exhibitions in Egypt ,England ,France .Italy and the United State .He has long been associated with La Barcaccia gallery in Rome, where he has been a resident since  1957, but he has also contributed to numerous independently organized international exhibitions. His paintings belong to museum and private collections in Egypt, Italy, and the United States. Cherif Sobhi is interested both in the figurative and textural dimensions of painting. In pursuing the latter he develops a rich surface on a wooden panel, a surface whose texture is further accented be the application of concentrated layers of varnish. This involved and unique technical approach aligns his work with that of contemporary Italian painters, but his selection of colors –vermillion, cobalt blue, azure green, and golden sepia, all of which are set against dark grounds – reveal his affinities to the iconic heritage of Egyptian art. A time-less presence pervades the still-life,       landscapes, and figural studies which comprise his subjects. Their arrangement yields mythic or narrative overtones.

The two main themes of dancing and the watercolors of Cairo in Rana Chalabi's exhibit paradoxically share the theme of the static and the dynamic. In the male and female dancers it is the challenge of capturing the ephemeral nature of three dimensional dynamic movement through the static medium of paper, oil, gold leaf, and colored inks. The movement of line and color, the interplay of diaphonous veil, and solid limbs, the highlights of gold within the fields of reds and blues, oranges and yellows make the dance come alive. In the Cairo watercolors, paradoxically, the static subject comes alive through the movement of the shades of color, the interplay of light and shade, and the subtle nature of watercolor depiciting the solid nature of Cairene monuments and life. Movement is life, and viewers of the exhibit will be able to resonate with that movement

Nazli Madkour
March 8 - March 29, 2007  

Nazli Madkour's exhibition will be inaugurated on the 8th of March 2007 at Safar Khan Gallery, Zamalek.  The exhibition will continue daily from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 6 to 9 p.m. until the 29th of March 2007.  It will be the 32nd personal show for the artist who will be exhibiting around forty mixed media paintings. The works of Nazli Madkour represent an inner world.  Inner visions of landscapes inspired by the desert and rural areas in Egypt and the inner world of women revealed though a series of faces.

Nazli Madkour was born in Cairo , where she lives and works; she has a Masters Degree in Political Economy from the American University in Cairo, and has followed art studies both in Cairo and Florence. Since 1982 she has had numerous personal and collective exhibitions that showed her works in Egypt as well as in Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, UK, Holland, Greece, Lebanon, Sharjah, Bahrein, Kuwait , Japan, China, USA and Canada. She is the author of the book "Women and Art in Egypt" (in Arabic, 1989 - in English, 1993)

Katherine Bakhoum
February 6 - March 6, 2007  

Born in Cairo in 1949, half Egyptian and half French. She studied at l'atelier Met de Penninghen and L'Ecole Estienne in Paris. Bakhoum started exhibiting her work in Paris in 1984. She exhibits twice a year, once in  Paris and once at Safarkhan in Cairo. She has been exhibiting yearly at Safarkhan since 1999. 

Bakhoum's Orientalist paintings stand powerfully with subtle (and sometimes definite) tones of pastel that bring to life charcters that seem to exist only in our imagination.

Anna Boghigiuan
April 2 - April 27, 2007

Born in Cairo in 1946 to Armenian and Egyptian parents, Boghiguian graduated in 1969 from the American University in Cairo. Although she majored in economics and political science she shifted gears and studied art under the tutelage of the great artist Fouad Kamel. Boghigiuan went on to obtain her BFA in visual art and music from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Boghigiuan has become a renowned contemporary Egyptian painter whose work has appealed to both foreign and local audiences. She has held numerous exhibitions in Egypt, Yemen, Greece, Canada and France and has illustrated many books including editions of Ungaretti, Cavafy and for the Nobel Laureate, Naguib Mahfouz.

 Omar El-Nagdi
 January 9 - February 2, 2007

Omar El-Nagdi was born in Cairo in 1931 and studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts. He participated in many exhibitions and Biennales in Egypt, Europe and the the former Soviet Union. Winner of several prizes, his paintings were acquired by museums and renowned institutions throughout the world.

El-Nagdi is an Egyptian symbolist and magician of colour. His paintings are sufficient proof of his exceptional gifts for symbolic design and the splendid use of colour. Through his expressive textures, colors and symbolic elements, his paintings offer serious communication that is deeply felt. He translates Egyptian life into timeless symbolism that goes beyond mere decoration to discover a mixture of humanist and mystic sensibilities.

Zakaria El Zeini
1932 -1993 
December 12 - January 5, 2007                                                             

Zakaria El-Zeiny was raised in the suburban areas of Cairo and graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts. He studied painting in Venice and graduated from the Academy of Pravana. Later he became a professor at the FFA and ended his career as head of the painting department.El-Zeiny is known to be an expressionistic artist using different symbols in his work and passing by several periods. The first period is the "Moulid" and the "El-Zar". His work has always been distinguished for having the human being (face or complete body) enclosed in a geometric shape of a square or a rectangle. Despite this rigid, enclosed portrayal, the viewer still feels the sympathy that the painter feels toward the human being living in a space in the form of a house, a door or a window.

Ihab Shaker 
November 17 - December 9, 2006

A juxtaposition of contradictions, illustrating the contrast between local  themes and modern approach, between childlike spontaneity and  reasoned control, between realistic vision and surrealistic whims, between authentic embodiment and convoluted simplification bordering  on the abstract, between mocking exaggeration and contemplative perception.

Ketty Abdel-Malek
"MOSAICS"
October 31 - November 14, 2006

Besides her passion for the Arts Ketty Abdel Malek graduated with a Bachelor in French Literature. She started taking courses and studying Mosaics in Ravennes in 1982 and in Rome in 1984. She kept practicing and mastering the technique and the application of this ancient form of Byzantine art until she was ready to launch her first exhibition in 1988 in Cairo which included mosaics, paintings and sculpture. K.A. Malek exhibited also in Rome, in Ravennes and in London.Ketty is not easily convinced with her production and she frequently rebels to find a new application and technique to her work. She is also perseveres and  persists with such stubbornness when she deals with cutting and shaping of such difficult materials like the marbles, glass and wood.