Meer, the online art-and-culture magazine, published this profile of Adel El Siwi on 16 October 2013 to coincide with a solo exhibition of his paintings at Artspace's London space, running from 9 November 2013 into January 2014. No author is credited on the piece, which reads as gallery-supplied background rather than independent criticism, tracing El Siwi's move from an early training in medicine at Cairo University into a self-directed twelve-year study of painting across Egypt and Europe.
The feature describes two strands in the London show: a restrained, near-monochrome body of work built from black, white and gold, and a second, more saturated group in which colour carries the narrative. Subjects include Pharaonic and African facial types, a series of Ottoman princesses the text calls studies in "Oriental Regality," and fable-like scenes of flower pots, palm trees and camels that the artist ties to a lifelong "passion for animals." It links this vocabulary back to two turning points in his career: a 1985 debut at Cairo's Atelier space, and a 1988 show at Mashrabia Gallery that pushed him from figuration toward interior landscape and still life, and later toward installation after his inclusion in the Venice Biennale survey Modernity & Memories: Recent Works from the Islamic World.
Adel El Siwi's practice has since moved on to further Cairo and Dubai showings, and Tabari Artspace continues to present his work, most recently in the solo exhibition Yellow Tropics.
