Dubai · 23/09/2026
Nada Elkalaawy: The Butterfly's Burden
A solo exhibition of new paintings by the Egyptian artist, titled after Mahmoud Darwish
The Butterfly's Burden is a solo exhibition by Egyptian artist Nada Elkalaawy. Borrowed from the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, the title speaks to the tension between sensitivity, beauty and emotional weight. Across a body of paintings developed through layered processes of accumulation and erasure, Elkalaawy explores memory, loss, regeneration and the passage of time. Ephemeral forms — flowers, butterflies, domestic vessels, family photographs and ghostly figures — hold traces of shared human experience, drifting between past and present, presence and absence. Drawing from a personal photographic archive of family albums, still lifes, auction catalogues and found imagery, she constructs compositions through collage, reworking and painterly methods, in which personal and collective histories and multiple temporalities coexist.
