Samo Shalaby
Cairo/Dubai/London

Samo Shalaby’s paintings create worlds in which no desire or fear is beyond imagining. Masqueraders dance through baroque dreamscapes in his Figurative Theatre series (2021– ); a princess faints under the pink light of her chambers in The Other Woman (2023); thick, plush curtains of silk and velvet are omnipresent, as if Shalaby wants us to question his theatricality. Is this only for show, or does something more sinister lie beneath?