Weaam El Masry


Weaam el Masry’s work explores issues of her native society especially the position of women, relationships and religion, yet is timeless and universal.

Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains wrote Jean–Jacques Rousseau in the first pages of his famous Social Contract published in 1762. These ‘chains’ are the modes of conduct prescribed as binding by a controlling authority. Government (human laws), religion (divine laws) and society (customs) form the ‘authorities’. Any act contrary would either be illegal, sinful or taboo. In The Forbidden, visual artists Yasser Nabaiel and Weaam el Masry question the state of the Arab world today, the chains of visible and invisible authorities and the constant need for a seal of approval.

Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains wrote Jean–Jacques Rousseau in the first pages of his famous Social Contract published in 1762. These ‘chains’ are the modes of conduct prescribed as binding by a controlling authority. Government (human laws), religion (divine laws) and society (customs) form the ‘authorities’. Any act contrary would either be illegal, sinful or taboo. In The Forbidden, visual artists Yasser Nabaiel and Weaam el Masry question the state of the Arab world today, the chains of visible and invisible authorities and the constant need for a seal of approval.


Weaam El-Masry (born 1976) has won over 17 awards from different institutions in Egypt such as the Youth Salons of the Ministry of Culture, Rateb Sedik Award and Port Said Biennale in Painting, Photography and Video Installations. An achievement difficult to compete with for her young age. With over 40 exhibitions under her belt and a PhD in Fine Arts, El-Masry is carving a distinctive place for herself in the Egyptian contemporary arts scene. Botero-esque, with a hint of Egon Schiele and Lucian Freud, mixed with a touch of Francis Bacon, El-Masry goes down universal paths examining women and their constant struggles with their body or that utter, almost suffocating bond that motherhood offers. Fearless, risque by all measures, El-Masry’s works are a voyage to the inner self. Collections: The Egyptian Ministry of Culture; Biblioteca Alexandrina; The Museum of Egyptian Modern Art and private collections in Egypt and Germany.