Nada Elkalaawy

Overview
Nada Elkalaawy

“My practice is influenced by my personal history of dealing with loss. My works contain traces of memories, while also challenging universal narratives of identity, belonging, and attachment through fictional narratives.” - Nada Elkalaawy

 
Influenced by a personal history of loss, Nada Elkalaawy’s practice is one of introspection; spanning painting, drawing, animation and textiles, her work is imbued with partly recalled and partly fictionalised memories drawn from an archive of materials belonging to her family, images sourced from the internet and her imagination. Challenging universal narratives of identity, while excavating routes to belonging, she aims to question our perceptions of reality whilst exploring the borderland between truth and fiction through her work. She is interested in the possibilities of interpretation, considering the many variables of a single narrative and the inherent subjectivity of storytelling in relation to one’s experience. 
 
In her recent works, Putti, the cherubic figures seen in paintings of the Renaissance and Baroque period, are a central motif deployed to explore the personification of the human spirit and emotion. Classically understood as manifestations of the invisible essences believed to influence human lives, her exploration of Putti delves into the ghostly materiality of porcelain figurines and their eerie, haunting hollowness. For Elkalaawy, these sculptures can be understood as containers for memories and emblems of loss, thereby acting as emotionally potent metaphors for the weight of the past. These works see the artist finding pleasure in the domestic and the mundane, personifying inanimate objects as vehicles to tell stories of intimacy, attachment and loss - close and yet distant, familiarity and yet mysterious.
Biography
Nada Elkalaawy

Nada Elkalaawy (b.1995, Alexandria, Egypt) lives and works in London. She graduated with an MFA in Painting from the Slade School of Fine Art (2018), and BA in Fine Art from Kingston University (2016). She has presented solo shows with Taymour Grahne Projects, London (2023, 2022), Super Super Markt, Berlin (2023); Galerie DuflonRacz, Bern (2021) and Gypsum Gallery, Cairo (2021).

 

Her work has been featured in group exhibitions by galleries including: The Africa Centre, London (2024); Half Gallery, New York (2023); Kirki Projects, Tinos (2023); Marlborough Gallery, London (2022); Svetova1, Prague (2022); Kunstraum Dreiviertel, Bern (2021); Southwark Park Galleries, London (2020); Kunsthalle am Hamburger Platz, Berlin (2020); MASS Alexandria, Alexandria (2019); Sharjah Art Gallery, Cairo (2019); Gypsum Gallery, Cairo (2018); Nahim Isaias Museum, Guayaquil (2017); Refugees Museum, Thessaloniki (2017); Piano Nobile Gallery, London (2017) and Crypt Gallery, London (2017) among others. 

Her work has been shortlisted for the Sainsbury Scholarship for the British School at Rome (2022), the Waverton Art Prize (2022), the ACS Studio Prize (2022), the Contemporary British Painting Prize (2022), the Dentons Art Prize (2018) and the Sarabande Emerging Art Fund (2018). She has been awarded the Montresso Art Foundation, Marrakech (2022); Pro Helvetia Studio Residency, PROGR, Bern (2021) and L’appartement 22, Rabat (2020). She has also participated in public events and talks including COP26 commission project for Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (2021); Ujamaa National Trust commission project (2021) and TASHWEESH festival, Goethe Institute, Cairo (2018). Her work is included in the X Museum collection (Beijing), Soho House collection (London) and private collections worldwide.

 
Exhibitions
Works