ArtTalks gallery is pleased to invite you to the first solo exhibition of Amira Ayoub, presenting a new body of work following her winning the First Prize of ArtTalks’ Masr Wallada – Edition II. In The Ones We Carry, Ayoub presents a world that exists outside ordinary time. Her paintings inhabit a space between figuration and dream, the biological and the psychological. Mothers, children, crowds, and solitary figures emerge from muted landscapes and monochromatic atmospheres, at once familiar and unsettling. Throughout the exhibition, the body functions not as portrait but as vessel. Infants appear sheltered within translucent membranes, embedded within maternal forms, or multiplied into anonymous collectives. Containment becomes a recurring motif, transforming the body into a site of protection, vulnerability, memory, and inheritance. Yet these are not simply paintings of mothers and children. Ayoub’s figures, with their enlarged eyes, simplified anatomy, and spectral presence, move away from the individual toward something archetypal. A monumental triptych expands this tension further, confronting a solitary figure with an anonymous multitude. The work opens onto questions of origin, belonging, migration, exile, and collective fate. Ayoub achieves this with a remarkable economy of means. Restrained palettes, softened contours, and controlled tonal transitions create an atmosphere of stillness in which what remains unspoken is often as powerful as what is revealed. At the heart of The Ones We Carry lies the tension between belonging and individuality, protection and freedom, intimacy and separation. Here, motherhood moves beyond biology to become a broader reflection on the bonds we inherit, the people we carry, and the fragile conditions that define human life. Born in 2002, Amira Ayoub graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Zamalek, in 2025. She is the First Prize winner of ArtTalks’ Masr Wallada – Edition II. OPENING RECEPTION Tuesday 15 September 6-9 pm ARTTALKS GALLERY 8 El Kamel Mohamed
