Hazem El Mestikawy

The practice of Hazem el Mestikawy swarms around the realms of architecture, design, sculpture, and visual tricking. Trained initially in the traditional mediums of sculpture, he plays with light and shade, with volume and its surrounding space while tackling the sculptural form; he skilfully probes the opposing forces of the geometrical and the organic. In his sculptural masses, el Mestikawy does not stop with elements that satisfy regular sculptors, as he pushes the boundaries of the sculpture discipline to create site specific installations, to make it difficult even for the specialist to identify the works: they are sculptures, installations, and definitely inspired and influenced by architecture. On the concept level, we can confidently describe el Mestikawy’s practice as having ingeniously assimilated both his ancient Egyptian and Islamic art and architecture, as well as the contemporary minimal art philosophies. The intriguing aspect of el Mestikawy’s practice is his insistence to work with cardboard and cartonage paper-based materials, his pieces of sculptural installations are created in and by a one-man-factory: the works are created since their initial sketches to the box they are carried away in to the exhibition space are made by Hazem el Mestikawy himself.