“The Pandemic” solo exhibition of paintings by Mohamed Bassuony is currently on display at Easel and Camera Contemporary art gallery.  

Bassuony is showing paintings that depict a host of dead and living Egyptian and international celebrities wearing a mask such as actors Ahmed Zaki, Souad Hosny, Shadia, Mahmoud Moursi, Dalida, Gioconda-Mona Lisa, Frida Kahlo, German prime minister Angela Merkel, US president Abraham Lincoln, and Mao Zedong of China. 

It’s the pandemic that affected the entire planet with no exceptions.   

On the concept of the show, Bassuony explained, “And if all those who ever terrorized people came back to life, they would be scared too and wear masks, taking every precaution there is and closing all paths and roads and everything without exception but all these measures wouldn’t stop the virus from spreading vigorously. And now we're all the same, all covered with a light blue, white or coloured piece of fabric covering the whole face from eyes under, with gloved hands and sanitary alcohol everywhere. Everyone looks the same. This theme or image has become a universal language and a unified universal religion able to unify the world while every language and religion that ever existed couldn't, now fear became the world's religion, the mask is its bible.”

The exhibition is on until 30 April.  

*A version of this article appears in print in the 25 March, 2021 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly