The exhibition, taking place at the Fann A Porter Gallery, features a series of twelve realistic paintings portraying dancing women.
"I started researching this subject after taking a dance class to deal with my own traumas," explains the 29-year-old artist, who graduated in Fine Arts from Helwan University in Egypt in 2017. "I found that dance had been used for many centuries as therapy, and I especially wanted to study its roots in Egyptian culture." - quoted from The National Abu Dhabi.
The young artist was particularly interested in belly dancing, and she was eager to learn about its meaning, movements, shapes and colours.
In her series "Dancer At Silver Center", Sara Tantawy paints three oil canvases, and has chosen circular canvases to represent eternity.
"I chose the canvas according to the movement of the body. The circle signifies the absence of beginning and end. It represents the Moon, the Sun and the Earth and it occupies the whole space. This circular movement of the body also represents the planetary movement around the sun" - Sara Tantawy for newspaper The National Abu Dhabi.
In the 'Heirloom' series, the artist uses a large square canvas. She mixes hieroglyphs and symbols from Egyptian tombstones in the background. The idea here is to express passion and desire.
Sara Tantawy, who lives in Cairo, has already presented her work in group exhibitions: the Beijing International Art Biennale in 2019, the Luxor International Painting Symposium in 2020, the Dafen International Oil Painting Biennale, the Bangladesh Asian Art Biennale last year, ...
Sara Tantawy's next body of work will move away from dance but will continue to highlight Egyptian culture, and in particular the Nubian one.
Photo: copyrights Pawan Singh / The National Abu Dhabi.