Nada Elkalaawy’s paintings and drawings attempt to explore notions of isolation and confinement. She utilizes small scale close-ups to relay a solitariness that is conducive to intimacy. Moments of forced reflection and observations of minute physical details are heightened in a closed space and a protracted experience of duration. Elkalaawy captures instances of deep attention one was only afforded at an early age, like the archaic exercise of observing seasons from the confines of a windowpane.
Elkalaawy uses mediums of oil on canvas, watercolors and biro pen on paper. Each technique lends a different temporality to the moments in question. Some works are completed in one sitting to signify an urgency to this prolonged state of being. Engaged in various banal activities, Elkalaawy’s figures seem to be detached and her act of seeing is the only deliberate one. The domestic setting is an introduction to every subsequent experience and a mirror for family dynamics and spatial explorations. Returning to a feeling of a familiar confinement, fixed practices of seeing, touching, waiting and being in the company of others are oddly altered.
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AVAILABLE WORKS
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