Egyptian artist Randa Fakhry unveils the final part in her trilogy

An exhibition is Cairo shows how the artist’s work is evolving, with the more prominent inclusion of animals. Her works are soothing yet still filled with sadness and grief, reflecting her own journey

Randa Fakhry's latest exhibition at the Zamalek Art Gallery in Cairo is titled Tiryāq (Elixir).

Egyptian artist Randa Fakhry unveils the final part in her trilogy

Mimoza Al-Arrawi

last update on 11 Jul 2025

Egyptian visual artist Randa Fakhry has unveiled her latest exhibition at the Zamalek Art Gallery in Cairo. Titled Tiryāq (Elixir), it completes a journey of survival, bringing together work crafted with a variety of materials in a continuation of two previous shows: Al-Sardab (The Cellar) and Marafi’ (Harbours).

The exhibition, which features 20 oil paintings using mixed media like découpage on canvas, acts as a healing elixir, albeit with its own complexities. Speaking to Al Majalla, Fakhry explains that the survival she expresses in her work is not only psychological, but also deeply physical.

“I chose the title Tiryāq because it reflects my emergence from a painful chapter in my life,” she says, describing the COVID-19 pandemic as “some of the worst days of my life,” both Fakhry and her entire family having been hospitalised, where each of them was placed on a ventilator.

Earthy and sand-toned hues dominate in Randa Fakhry's work

“My aunt passed away. A week later, so did my mother. I was in critical condition for a month. I survived, but my life has not been the same since. I no longer see the world as I once did. I was overcome by grief, haunted by emptiness and the unbearable weight of loss. But by God’s grace, I slowly regained my strength and began working on these paintings, which I now see as a divine remedy, as God’s own treatment.”

Grief and loss

Fakhry’s previous exhibitions offered a raw and poignant expression of anxiety and sorrow, and her latest show does not part with those themes. Grief and loss are still present, but here they are softened, giving space for certain elements to seep into the paintings, akin to hidden salves that soothe (without erasing) the wounds still visible on the painted faces and in the postures of hands cloaked in loose, pale white gloves.

These elements, including birds and animals, had been introduced previously but never this prominently. Some are domesticated; others are wild, typically found in forests or jungles. In her earlier works, these creatures appeared either as visual foils to human subjects, or as fleeting guests. Here, they take on a central role.

“I adore all good-hearted creatures... animals that embody love and sincerity,” says Fakhry. “I don’t care whether or not they are sentient in the way humans are. What matters to me most are their honest, instinctive emotions, untainted by pretence or performance. That’s what I value in human relationships, too. That’s why I love caring for animals and being around all kinds of beautiful species.”

Stillness of contradiction

A closer look at Randa Fakhry’s paintings reveals a compelling tension at play, one shaped by the absence of linear time, which the creatures she paints seem to carry into the heart of the work. It fosters an eerie sense of stillness, a quiet that feels detached from the physical world altogether. In all likelihood, this stillness represents the essence of the tiryāq she conveys through her visual language.

“Anyone who’s ever raised an animal knows their uncanny ability to reveal just how flimsy our concept of time really is,” Fakhry says. “They gently carry us, without sorrow or effort, into a realm of mystery, into something unseen, beyond our physical and sensory limits.” This might be what she means when she speaks of a “divine elixir”.

I chose the title Tiryāq (Elixir) because it reflects my emergence from a painful chapter in my life

Egyptian visual artist Randa Fakhry

Fakhry's work is often described as introspective; a private meditation seemingly detached from the turmoil of the outside world. One critic classified it as "feminine aesthetic," an inward-looking realm steeped in the emotional currents of womanhood. But that framing, she insists, is misleading: it imagines the feminine as isolated, disconnected from real-world impact, as though the woman were somehow exempt from the forces shaping everyone else's life.

Fakhry rejects that outright. "For me, the inner world represents safety and reassurance. I find comfort in the horizontal line. It anchors me and gives me a stable place to begin constructing the bones of the painting, both in colour and form. But that doesn't mean I'm closed off from the world. On the contrary: I absorb what's happening all around me. Many scenes and crises touch me deeply and appear in my work. What's happening in Palestine and Sudan, for instance, stays with me."

Colours and tones

There is still a kind of chromatic unity to Fakhry's paintings. All her colours seem to speak in the same tone. Earthy and sand-toned hues dominate, so thoroughly that even the blues appear dusted with desert chalk and limestone. This may reflect her own grounding in the Egyptian landscape, a connection to its soil, heat, sand, and air.

Animals are an increasingly prominent theme in Randa Fakhry's latest works

The earth tone palette branches into striking mutations, from coppery reds to mossy greens, all of which contribute to a sense of quiet, even in works where the emotional intensity is turned up. The paradox lies in how these tranquil colours emerge from an artist who, in person, often dresses in vibrant shades, if to make room for every colour she cannot include on her canvas.

"My zodiac sign is Earth," she explains. "I love the land, its soil, everything it produces, and all the elements it contains. My personality is full of contradictions. I'm drawn to both intense and soft colours, and I see calmness behind even the boldest hues. That mix is what drives me to paint. It's the tension between colour and silence, between structure and surrender. What results is a strange kind of stillness, filled with ambiguity."

One such painting of contradiction is titled Radiance. In it, a young woman wears a golden star around her head—a hat, or perhaps a halo, it is symbolic and suggestive of unconditional generosity. She is holding a shallow dish of wheat flour in her hands, where three birds perch at the edge, eating contentedly. Above her, the mounted head of a gazelle hovers, and on one of its antlers, another small bird sits.

Energy at its quietest

Grief still lingers behind the faces and eyes of Fakhry's characters. In her previous shows, eyes often appeared sunken, hollowed out by shadow, as though sorrow had struck a quiet pact between what the eye sees outwardly and what it perceives inwardly.

Fakhry recently posted one of her new paintings from the exhibition on her Facebook page, together with an audio clip of the iconic song My Heart and Its Key. In the painting titled Unsent Letters, the viewer sees strips of coloured paper (like she often uses in her découpage work) emerging from a typewriter in front of a young woman.

The stillness that runs through Randa Fakhry's paintings flows gently along the textured contours she crafts with her beloved collage technique, yet there is also a distinct intensity in the emotional force and desire that binds her painted figures to the other elements of the canvas. This might be one of the defining features of her work: the way it pulses with energy even at its quietest.

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