Mythology: Asmaa Elnawawy’s first solo exhibition

CAIRO – 13 April 2019: The opening of the first Solo Exhibition entitled Mythology by talented young Artist Asmaa Elnawawy will be on April 14 at Al Masar gallery and will continue to May 13.

Mythology featuring her latest Neo Realism paintings inspired by Egyptian mythology such as Paper dolls and white Magic, life, and nature, in a divine composition that motivated her strong and sincere blend of colors that enriches the expressionism of her innovations.

Paper Dolls are used in one of our Egyptians traditional spiritual ceremonies and practices, related to ancient beliefs.

It's more like white magic. The paper doll purpose was to prevent the envy eyes.

‘’I searched for the symbolic meaning of the paper doll in Egyptian society; I found that it refer to continuity of life.

These group of paintings are based on the cumulatively symbols idea, where the paintings consist a group of symbols. In order to solve the mystery of every painting you need to know the meaning of each symbol and ornament’’ Elnawawy said.

In each painting there is a group of figures interacting with the Paper dolls, and surrounded with number of symbols and ornaments.

One of these symbols is the wild bird, which belong to the Persian Islamic culture.

‘’These wild birds are symbol of the difficulties human beings face in life. The plant ornament is another symbol can be found in the paintings ‘’ she added.

Elnaway further explained that they refer to all the people and things which look appealing, but they are harmful.

That is because this plant ornament, which also belongs to the Persian culture, is a harmful plant.

‘’The last symbol can be found in the paintings is the maze, which is a symbol of life. In my opinion, life is more or less like a maze’’ she recounted.

It seems difficult to face all its challenges without losing hope, but finding a purpose for your life would help you in achieving a reason to live. So finally, so guarding your old paper doll can be a purpose of living

Asmaa was born 1981 in Cairo, Egypt where she currently lives and works. Studied visual art at the faculty of fine Art, and granted her Master’s degree and PHD on the relevance of the expression of symbolism, ornaments and human figures in Art.

Asmaa is currently a professor and lecturer at the faculty of Fine Art Fine since 2002 until today.

Al Nawawi also granted the ‘Egyptian National Award for Innovation’ prize in 2014, Followed by a distinguished scholarship in Rome, Italy, in 2015, where she continued researching and developing her Art more at depth.

The Artist finds each one of her paintings more like a research, or a project, where she plunges into the world of symbolism and ornaments while using the cumulative symbols & concepts to create an artwork that which is more composed of riddles needing to be solved.

Asmaa succeeded in making her own visual pictorial language of her own expressionism.

She aims to heighten the viewer’s perceptions by involving them in the subtleness and the beyond meanings of each ornament, symbol and human equation which are always incorporated in her paintings, thus creates an amusing and distinctive dialogue in visual and emotional language and style, mostly featuring Human figures , their reality, thought, and dreams.

Asmaa Al Nawawi’s works have been exhibited in many group Exhibitions both in Egypt, the Middle East and Europe.

Some of Asmaa Elnawawy’s paintings: