Investec Cape Town Art Fair published The Works of Renowned Egyptian Artist, Adel El Siwi on its editorial site to accompany his presentation with Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art at the 2024 edition of the fair. The unsigned feature introduces El Siwi through his monumental faces and the personal painting technique behind them, describing a body of work that is at once sensual and conceptually lucid.
The piece writes that El Siwi has devoted long contemplation to the human face, producing works that range from abstract forms to portraits of Egyptian stars and luminaries. He describes the face as "a sphere atop a cylinder," and the article treats these faces as enigmatic puzzles in which the spirit finds expression. It then turns to his animals, dogs, cats, birds and reptiles painted as protagonists in their own right, and traces his interest in metamorphosis to a wide reading that runs from Egyptian and Greek mythology to the fables of Aesop and La Fontaine.
Adel El Siwi studied medicine at Cairo University between 1970 and 1976 while also studying at the Faculty of Fine Arts, then lived and worked in Milan for a decade before returning to Cairo. His command of anatomy underpins the elongated figures and faces that define his painting. He has shown at the Cairo Biennale, the Sharjah Biennial and the Venice Biennale, and his solo exhibition Yellow Tropics was presented at Tabari, which represents him.
