Today, Cairo seems to be stuffed with more than it can handle. Adorned with supreme heritage and an intricate magnetism, the city is infused with a rich history.  Marred with chronic overcrowding and the resulting frustration, the city is immersed in a relentless smoky haze.  This year, art emerges, left and right,  to narrate life in a city overflowing with verve.

Unable to untangle paintbrush from emotion, contemporary Egyptian artists project raw sentiment on canvas. Proving that art is highly contextual, 2010’s succession of exhibitions is a colourful promenade through current culture.

The Masters

In an exhibition entitled ‘Cairo Towers’ at the Zamalek art gallery, prominent painter Mohamed Abla brings out Cairo’s bright lights and enduring vibrancy, creating compositions that almost comically depict the city’s congestion. His palette unrestrained, Abla piles stories upon stories to create lego-like yet untamed buildings. He creates a hyperbolic world, in which buildings shout out tales and secrets of a teeming city.

Painting a face for the city, Adel El Siwi injected his dramatic expressionist style into Mashrabiya’s 20^th anniversary. This downtown gallery is cleverly boisterous, its creamy walls and delicate arches disturbed year-round by diverse artwork. El Siwi paints a portrait, split right down the middle into black and white. Bold, monochromatic strokes render this painting extremely intriguing - for even though the features lay indiscernible, the visage draws you in, its dark and light temperament resonating deep within.

The Rising Stars

At a collective exhibition at El Masar gallery, a graceful getaway from the clamour of the street, Hany Rashed emerged, making his imprint within the contemporary art scene with pop-arty renditions of magazine covers and film posters (also exhibiting at Mashrabiya, and Lot 17 throughout the year). Influenced by local and international artists alike, Rashed’s art shape-shifts, as he explores different media and styles.

Rising artist Hassan Hassan takes pop-art a step further, exhibiting drawings of glamorous women a la Andy Warhol-style at Studio 14. Up- -and-coming artist Dalia Sabet also exhibited in the petite gallery in art- infused Zamalek, fascinating audiences with large-scale paintings that contrive to steal your attention for much longer than a fleeting moment. Collecting discarded materials from the streets of Cairo, Sabet artfully assembles her subjects’ wardrobe; her artwork is original and completely charismatic.

Also finding beauty in the rough, May El Hossamy showcased photographs, installation, and a short video at the Darb 1718 Contemporary Art and Culture Centre, portraying the previously action-packed Souq al-Gomaa, capturing its glory, as well as its post-fire trauma. The young photographer zooms in on colourfully scattered treasures, and later on the ashes of the once-thriving market. All the while, El Hossamy called for donations to help salvage the broken hearts of the Souq families.

Also shooting for societal welfare, Hoda Baraka exhibited a series of photographs featuring the colours of Gharb Soheil at the Easel and Camera gallery in Maadi. Sponsored by the Centre for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe (CEDARE), the exhibition featured vibrantly-inspiring snapshots of a charming Nubian village. Baraka’s assortment of photos strived to preserve this magical village, which is threatened by large-scale tourism.

The Mavericks

During 2010, modern Egyptian artists decided to comment on the status quo, through breaking conventional barriers of form and figure.  The renowned Bahgoury did not cease to amaze; he also exhibited at the Mashrabiya’s collective. He painted a disfigured nude woman, stretching out not two, but three legs as she reclines into a chaise-longe. Her features leave their rightful positions; her disposition is left bold and pensive.

Running wild with deformity and nudity, Samir Fouad exhibited a daringly raw collection dubbed ‘Flesh’ at the Picasso art gallery in Zamalek. Fouad jumbles up his subjects’ features, and leaves their lips parted, making room for their hushed screams. The artist is disturbed by contemporary society; its greedy speed, and its vile violence - and his frustration is artfully rendered on canvas.

Also adding a twist to reality, Souad Mardam Bey creates a fantastical world, where the wardrobe is elaborate, colours alluring and dispositions utterly enchanting. Definitely one of the highlights of 2010, Mardam Bey’s collection, entitled ‘Les Choses de la Vie’, was inspired by Cairene life. Like the assortment of artists using Cairo as their palette, the artist borrows from the intricacies of Egyptian culture to produce glorious, narrative art.