Egyptian visual artists Marwan ElGamal, Nada Baraka and Soha Elsirgany are presenting their work at the group exhibition entitled 'Tea Time with my Lungs' at SOMA Art Gallery, open on 18 September and running until 16 October.

"Their collective works consider how the physical body – with its organs and systems – creates internal narratives in response to exterior happenings," reads the event's press release.

"Between memories, coping mechanisms, traumas, and other incidents, the stories we receive and the ones we tell ourselves are physically manifesting. The body becomes a hosting space – a theatre, room, city, or landscape – for these narratives to play out.

"The stories have already occurred and marked their territory in the body, but they change their form with time and get warped with each retelling. Outer and inner worlds are modified, and reconstructed, all in a state of flux."

Marwan ElGamal, 29, who studied at the Frank Mohr Institute in Groningen, the Netherlands, held his debut solo show at Medrar Gallery in 2017, and his work has been exhibited in Egypt and the Netherlands.

"A series of paintings presents the body in different ways, through alternate maps, as only a fellow human can. The layers of synaptic ghosts, rolls of soft and warm surfaces, calcified structures in orderly alignment, sensors shooting out in space receiving information," ElGamal described his works at the 'Tea Time with my Lungs' exhibition.

Born in 1990, Nada Baraka, who has a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins, London, has exhibited work in several group exhibitions in London, Paris and Lisbon, and she has been featured online in Louisiana, USA (Artebella) in addition to exhibitions in several venues in Cairo.

"Small findings or hints of structure holds all the city together, even if it's on the verge of recreation. Body parts from both machines and creatures are intertwined as we go through different phases of city’s evolution. It’s a city that is alive, that is volcanic, and ever expanding in its own realm," Baraka, who won first prize in Mohamad Abla's painting competition in 2015, said about her works at the exhibition.

The winner of Salon Prize at the 25th Youth Salon, Soha Elsirgany is an Egyptian multimedia artist and arts journalist whose works were displayed in many group exhibitions in several venues in Egypt and internationally. She was showcased at Akkigalleria in Finland, The Changing Room in London and Lichter Filmfest Frankfurt in Germany.

"The atlas charts some of the ways emotions and internal dialogue have intruded on bodily functions. It considers the influence of memory and regards it as an unreliable narrator of the internal dialogue – a shapeless presence physically changing the city. Some areas harbor more darkness, some are overdeveloped – it’s a city shaped by a delicate effort to balance opposites; lenience with tension, receiving and contributing, embracing and resisting," she says about her project at the 'Tea Time with my Lungs' exhibition.

Programme:
From Wednesday 18 September at 7PM to Monday 16 of October (everyday except Friday)
SOMA Art Gallery, 3 Al Adel Abou Bakr Square Zamalek

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