Mai Refky (b. 1976) is an Egyptian painter whose practice brings together two longstanding concerns: the human figure and the structural possibilities of pattern. Informed by her study of Islamic art and architecture, she has developed an approach to figuration in which the body is understood less through individual identity or narrative than through movement, repetition and its relationship to the space around it. Refky’s practice has evolved through a sustained dialogue between figurative painting and her study of ornament. What began as an interest in portraiture gradually shifted away from facial expression and individual character as pattern assumed a more fundamental role in her work. Her engagement with Islamic visual traditions has been particularly significant, not as a repertoire of motifs to reproduce, but as a way of thinking through repetition, variation and the capacity of a form to generate further forms. The human body increasingly participates in this same logic, allowing figuration and pattern to operate within a shared system rather than as separate elements. Refky graduated from the Painting Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University, in 1998 and subsequently studied Islamic Art and Architecture at the American University in Cairo. She later completed a diploma in Traditional Islamic Arts and Crafts at Jameel House of Traditional Arts in Cairo. She has exhibited in Egypt and internationally, and her work is held in the Museum of Egyptian Modern Art in Cairo and the Contemporary Art Museum in Vukovar, Croatia.