A Naked Model, 2010

Mixed-media installation, acrylic ink on wall and video projection
Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, California, USA, 2010
Photography: Nicolo Minerbi ©2010

A Naked Model was made at the conclusion of a year-long residency at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California — the first major work I made after my MFA thesis show at Tyler School of Art. It marked a break: having freed myself from academic painting, I began treating space as the primary medium.

The installation combines a large site-specific mural with a video projection of a new lecture by Mr. Mokhtar — a character I created during my MFA years, a self-proclaimed activist of great importance delivering urgent messages to an audience that exists only in his imagination. Together, the mural and the projection offer a playful but pointed commentary on a phenomenon that was reshaping Egyptian society at the time: the rise of religious radicalism.