Egyptian artist Mai Refky holds a Bachelor degree in painting from Helwan University’s Fine Arts in Cairo (1998), as well as her studies of Islamic art and architecture at the American University in Cairo (1999-2000). She also holds a Traditional Islamic Arts and Crafts Diploma from Jameel House of Traditional Arts in Cairo (2013 – 2015).
Since 1998, she has presented works in solo shows as well as collective exhibitions both nationally and internationally. Her work explores the relationship between the human form and eclectic patterns from her surroundings. These elements are layered like a dynamic collage, as she combines figure-drawings in pencil and charcoal with segments of patterns in vivid oil paints on canvas.
Freed from symbolic meaning or cliché philosophical interpretations, Refky’s work is like a study of all possible relations between figures and patterns. Her process is academic as it is playful, realized over extended periods of time and exposed to all the different energies she approaches it with. A process that questions originality, reinterpretation, repetition as well as the dynamics of daily practices.
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