ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Rehab Telawy (Rehab Mohamed Abdel Moneam) is an Egyptian visual artist and academic whose practice is rooted in mural painting, mosaic and experimental mixed-media approaches. She graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, specialising in mural painting, and pursued an academic career at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Minya, where she progressed from teaching assistant to Associate Professor.

Her artistic practice explores the relationship between human experience, cultural memory and visual identity. She translates emotions, social realities and personal responses to contemporary life into layered compositions in which colour, material and structure become expressive tools.

A significant part of Telawy's practice is her engagement with Egyptian heritage and applied arts, particularly mosaic and tessellation. Rather than treating traditional visual language as something fixed in the past, she combines heritage-inspired forms, symbols and techniques with contemporary artistic approaches. Her recent works demonstrate a dialogue between ancient Egyptian visual culture and contemporary abstraction, using materials such as mosaic, stone, sand, gypsum and gold leaf.

Telawy has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Egypt and internationally, including exhibitions and artistic forums at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Mahmoud Mokhtar Museum, Ahmed Shawky Museum, Al-Ahram Art Gallery, the Faculty of Fine Arts in Minya and Luxor, as well as international and virtual exhibitions. Her recent presentations include a solo exhibition at the Faculty Gallery in Minya in 2025 and participation in the PDA / Printemps des Artistes Cairo exhibition at the French Consulate in Zamalek in 2026.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My practice begins with an interest in the relationship between human experience and the visual language through which it can be expressed. I use painting and mixed media as a space to translate emotions, social circumstances and the experiences of contemporary life into colour, form and material.

For me, art is not simply a representation of reality. It is a way of processing what we experience - a means of transforming emotional and social tensions into a visual language. Colour and composition become carriers of feeling, allowing the artwork to communicate experiences that cannot always be expressed through words.

Heritage is another essential dimension of my practice. I am particularly drawn to mosaic, tessellation and the visual traditions of Egyptian art. I do not seek to reproduce historical forms literally. Instead, I reinterpret elements of Egyptian visual heritage through a contemporary artistic language, allowing symbols, geometric structures and traditional materials to enter into dialogue with abstraction and experimentation.

My recent work explores the meeting point between authenticity and modernity, material and spirit, memory and contemporary expression. I am interested in how ancient visual principles - balance, rhythm, geometry and symbolism - can be transformed into new compositions that speak to the present.

Material itself is an important part of this process. Mosaic, stone, sand, gypsum and gold leaf are not merely technical components; they carry associations with place, history and permanence. Through their physical presence, I seek to create works in which cultural memory can be experienced not only visually, but also through texture and materiality.

I also consider the artwork an open space for communication. I do not want to impose a single, predetermined interpretation on the viewer. Through layered surfaces, symbols, textures and experimental combinations, I leave room for personal associations and individual readings.

Ultimately, my practice is an ongoing dialogue between the inherited and the contemporary, the personal and the collective, and the physical material of art and the emotions it can carry.