Artist Biography

  I was born in Racine Wisconsin in 1980, into an Egyptian middle class nuclear family. I grew up both in Racine and in Cairo, Egypt, and was always challenged by the contradiction of being both Egyptian and American. Between 1985 and 1998 I had relocated four times between Americaïs Dairyland and the Land of The Pharaohs. In Racine, a small suburb of 85,000, where we were the only Egyptian family, I attended elementary and middle schools with almost all of my classmates being white Americans. In Cairo, Egypt, I studied with students from more than 80 countries, in a city of 16 million Egyptians. Because the cultures, customs and surroundings were so different, adjusting between the two extremes was traumatic. Despite this, my experience growing up has given me the ability to reconcile and see past contradictory differences in culture, and to recognize the basic qualities that make us all human, regardless of what form they may take. For me, art is about breaking past appearances, illusions, and conventions, and reaching an inner core where our understanding is unified regardless of our experiences.