Mandy El-Sayegh's Punk-Inspired Solo Show at Lawrie Shabibi

Mandy El-Sayegh's inaugural solo exhibition at Lawrie Shabibi in Dubai, curated by Sara Raza, runs from an unspecified date. Titled 'A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,' the show borrows its name from Gertrude Stein's 1913 poem 'Sacred Emily.' The exhibition combines painting, installation, video, sound, and performance, reflecting punk's DIY visual culture. El-Sayegh layers painted surfaces with sheets from international newspapers, incorporating stretched canvases, unfinished paintings, intricate patterns, symbolic references, and collages. The work explores resistance and reclamation, drawing on ancestral, familial, and collective visual data from ephemera, textiles, literature, and printed materials. Sound artist Sami El-Enany contributed a spatialized multi-channel sound work centered on the square as a site for liberation, inspired by historical and recent political movements. El-Enany also created a score for a performance co-created with movement artist Chelsea Gordon, incorporating prayer rituals and hypnotic rhythms. Curator Sara Raza wrote an accompanying essay.