Mohamed Monaiseer

Mohamed Monaiseer (b. 1989, Cairo, Egypt) is an Egyptian artist based in Cairo. He makes drawings and paintings in acrylic and ink on found cloth, canvas and paper. The surfaces are covered in dense, repeated marks that resemble heritage craft, with figures and words multiplied many times over.

His subjects include alchemy, metaphysics and oral histories, and he treats the long handwork as a kind of ritual. Early series include Talisman and Muted (2014), acrylic and ink on found cloth, and Toy Soldier (2015 to 2018), acrylic on cotton fabric. Storyteller, begun in 2016, was shown in Taxidermy Dreams at Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, in 2018. The works in 85 Seconds To Midnight (2026) take their title from the setting of the Doomsday Clock. He made them during the war on Gaza, which began while he was on residency at Can Serrat in Spain. Armed figures, animals, vessels and trees move between drawing, painting and khayamiya, the Egyptian hand-stitched appliqué. Some canvases are stretched on tapering or scroll-like frames and use rusted iron and repurposed kitchen cloths.

Monaiseer holds a BA in Educational Art (2011) and an MFA (2015) from Cairo University. His solo exhibitions include Muted (2014) and Barzakh (2015) at Safarkhan Gallery, Cairo. Adrift in the Labyrinth of a Parallel Mind followed at Athr Gallery, Jeddah (2019). Later solo shows are I, PET LION at Gypsum Gallery, Cairo (2024) and Limen: Thresholds at Tabari Artspace, Dubai (2025). He was in residence at the Delfina Foundation, London, in 2019, and received the Youth Salon Ministry of Culture Prize in Egypt in 2015.