Abdel Dayem to inaugurate 'Man, Place, and Time,a seven Decades Journey' exhibition Dec 1

CAIRO - 29 November 2019: Egyptian minister of culture Inas Abdel Dayem will inaugurate the retrospective Exhibition of Eminent 3rd Generation Artist, Fatma Arargi entitled ''Man, Place, and Time,a seven Decades Journey'', on Sunday December 1 at 6:00 PM. "The Artist will be Present"…

The Exhibition, which will display almost 51 paints of the Artist innovated in 70 years long. The works features her different body of works on: People & life, 1956 aggression, Luxor and Nubia, working class, 1967 war, post war and populist surrealism on Man & Universe and walls of time. This Exhibition is considered the first solo exhibition for the Artist in Thirty years.


Fatma Arargi was born (1931) in Cairo, Egypt. Arargi Graduated from ‘The Faculty of fine Arts’ in Cairo, 1951. After three decades in 1981, Arargi became the head of painting department at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Alexandria, ‘where she lived.

Arargi, such most artists of ‘ The Third Generation of the Art Movement’, worked on defining the Egyptian Identity in Art, through a sincere interaction with heritage and the ongoing political, social changes and challenges from the 50’s to the 70’s and onward.
She managed to blend all that with her expression that can be traced in her works through all its different styles of drawing and painting inspired by the essences of Egyptian heritage of all ages and civilizations, and touching base with the rich vernacular heritage with human beings and their world as a core of her works. Such we clearly identify at her Luxor inspired works she started when she granted her art residency in Luxor, and later with the ‘fishermen’ collection, that can be described among many others, as a key of her post war ‘populist surreal & Abstract’ works.
Gradually, metaphysical abstraction dominated the inspiration of her works in the 70’s and 80’s, as her vision of the man and his universe became more conceptually abstracted, while she explored many aspects of such relation both philosophically and aesthetically.

Therefore, in her earlier work we see a visible extended practice in many different body of works focused on life of ordinary People, such motherhood, family life of peasants, working class and upper Egyptians.

Such she expressed at her post war works though an intense and more abstracted search for the Human and his relation to the Universe, earth and Sun, which can be viewed in her later body of works innovated early 70’s and throughout her career until today. While seeing her work in a panoramic view one can trace a continuum philosophy, search, exploration and such riddles. Her entire collections innovated in different expressions and compositions, indeed formed her seven decades journey into the aesthetics of Art… and life.

The Artist has exhibited her works at few Solo Exhibitions since 1958 until 1989, at the Museum of Modern Art, Cairo, Museum of Fine Art, Alexandria, and Mahmoud said Museum, Alexandria. Besides few solo and group Exhibitions in Rome, Florence, Paris, Vienna, Frankfurt, Moscow and China. Arargi also represented Egypt at Sao Paolo Biennial in 1985.

Artist Fatma Arargi is currently living and working in Alexandria, Egypt. Al Masar Gallery for Contemporary Art exclusively display the Artist work.