LIMONATA

Curatorial Statement

In this exhibition, Soraya Fahmy returns to nature as an inexhaustible reservoir of stories, choosing the lemon—fruit, tree, and symbol—as the axis of an artistic and research-based journey that unfolded over two full years. A journey that did not stop at form or color, but delved beneath the surface: into history, medicine, myths, folk sayings, songs, rituals, and everyday products that shaped Egyptian collective memory—among them, for example, the iconic Spiro Spathis soda and the beloved 555 cologne. The exhibition brings together paintings, sculptures, and spatial installations, where research becomes material, and information transforms into visual imagination. We see the lemon, touch it through textures, and sense its presence in the air. Yellow floods the space—not merely as a color, but as a psychological state—while the scent of lemon becomes an integral part of the experience, not a secondary element. As in her previous works, Soraya Fahmy practices her own kind of surrealism: a surrealism rooted in reality, in overlooked details, in nature when we slow down and truly look. Here, as in her earlier exhibition “Fungi”, she does not present her subject as self-evident. Instead, she dismantles it, gives it another voice, and invites the viewer to discover what they had not noticed before. Limonata is not simply an exhibition about lemons. It is about our ability to listen to simple things when we give them time, research, and imagination. It is an invitation to refreshment—not only in the sensory sense, but as an act of discovery and a celebration of life. Naheda El Khoury Zamalek Art Gallery

Exhibition Details