Nazli Madkour

About Nazli Madkour

Nazli Madkour lives and works in Cairo, Egypt. Her works fall between abstraction and figuration exploring an inner world inspired by Egyptian landscape and often haunted by the women of Egypt. Her paintings are textural with a stress on earth tones, yet more colours and textural illusions have seeped into her recent works. Her sources are predominantly local and her aesthetic language universal.

“My work is an attempt at redefining space and time. It delves into the depths of a subjective and imaginary landscape to propose a particular moment, tension and balance that translates the quivers and pulses of the time and space I live in.”

Arabian Nights and Days [2005]
Glicee Prints in portfolio
Donated by the artist, 2009

Nobel Laureate, Naguib Mahfouz’s book, Arabian Nights and Days was published in June 2005 by The Limited Editions Club, in an edition of just 300. This special publication was beautifully illustrated by Egyptian artist, Nazli Madkour, the original paintings of which are displayed in this exhibition.

Madkour’s mixed-media paintings, simultaneously naïve and sophisticated, are quintessentially Arabian in spirit and bring to mind the flying carpets of Arabian folklore. Madkour's 35x35cm paintings were transformed into fine-art prints as illustrations by George Drexel, considered by artists to be the supreme master of the complex technique involved known as Giclee, meaning sprayed. As Drexel describes it, Giclee is a process whereby the original painting is scanned or rendered digitally.

In edition to the 300 livres d’artistes produced, 60 portfolios were also published containing 10 signed illustrations, each signed by the artist.