Mohamed El Masry

Mohamed El Masry, visual artist, and photographer, was born in 1978, in Giza, Egypt. He obtained a Diploma in painting and photography in 2006, a Bachelor of Arts in Art Education in 2003, from Helwan University; he works and lives in Cairo.

For a long time, EL Masry’s works were based on oil painting as an “experiment” whose background is based on the intellectual and theoretical basis of ancient Egyptian art, which works heavily on the philosophy of abstraction and element analysis. This experience won many awards and performances, most notably the Olympic Gold Medal of Art - the Beijing Olympics 2008, and the Olympic Torch Olympics 2006. During Mohamed Mahmoud Street skirmish in Egypt in 2011, he moved emotionally to the forefront of the memes scene on social media, as he produced a "Breaking News" project that included many digitally modified pictures, in which he mocked the way Egyptian media dealt with street facts and misled the masses. "Golden tanks stuck in shipping" This sentence came as a title for a newspaper issued by EL Masry at the Redzone Festival, Beirut, 2018, as an alternative when the tanks were lost inside the shipping system between China and Beirut, this work comes as the first version of a term long- a project entitled "Economy of effort pays the price".

EL Masry participated in many international biennials around the world such as the 1st Dafen oil painting edition - China, 2018, the 18th edition of the International Asian Biennial - Bangladesh, 2016, 2018, the 2nd edition of the New York Biennial for Contemporary Arts - USA, 2013, the 1st edition of the Ecorea Biennale - South Korea, 2012, 3th, 4th, and 5th Beijing Biennale - China, 2008, 2010, 2012, 7th edition of the Berlin Biennial, Germany, 2012, 4th edition of the Tehran International Biennale of Art - Iran, 2006. He has many individual: Cocatography - UBUNTU art gallery, Cairo-Egypt, 2020, exhibitions as Prayers, an exhibition about power and powerlessness - CCK Foundation - Norway, 2019," Redzone "Festival - Al-Mawred Cultural Foundation - Lebanon, 2018," Breaking News "–Sofa gallery- Lithuania, 2012.

He has won several international and domestic awards, most notably: Honorary Ambassador of the Ecorea Biennale - South Korea, 2012, Honorary Medal of North Art Space Gallery – Jakarta – Indonesia, 2011, Honorary Medal of Banja Luka City - Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2010, painting award - 18th, Youth Salon, Egypt, 2008, First Prize in Photography - Ministry of Youth, Egypt, 2007, First Prize in Photography - First International Youth Salon Alexandria, Egypt, 2006.