MO DARWISH

ONCE UPON A MEMORY

Mostafa Darwish is a Minnesota-based artist from Egypt with community roots in Philadelphia. A graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Mo is the recipient of multiple honors and awards, including the WASSAIC Project Residency, Chanorth Residency, the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, and the Wind Challenge Grant. He is the founder of The Codex Project, a curated annual display of twenty artists’ sketchbooks exhibited in Philadelphia galleries. In 2020, he received the New Mary Butler Purchase Award and became the first Egyptian-American artist whose work was purchased and added to the permanent collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Museum.

Mo explores ideas of belonging at the intersection of immigration, diaspora, cultural and political dissidence, and self-reflection. Mo’s classical approach to painting and muted palette are sandwiched between substrates of mylar and linoleum and vibrant, playful lines. The distinct layers function like magnetic resonance imaging, providing a direct pathway to unique patterns of memory, creativity, culture, identity, and lived experience. Through contrast, linear narrative, and sound, Mo navigates the overlap of childhood memories and imagination and the aged consideration of time gone by. The audiosensory and visual vibration of the work welcomes audience participation in the act of looking back, pushing forward, and finding home.

“I have come to understand that home can be a concept that evolves with our life experiences; it is interchangeable, a conceivable hypothetical amenity that can never materialize and take a physical manifestation. It is something that we carry within ourselves, a part of our journey and heritage.”- Mo Darwish

Find more of Mo’s work at www.mostafadarwishart.com.