The Butterfly’s Burden

On 23 September, we open The Butterfly’s Burden, a solo exhibition by Nada Elkalaawy. Borrowed from the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, the exhibition’s title speaks to the tension between sensitivity, beauty, and emotional weight. Across a body of paintings developed through layered processes of accumulation and erasure, Elkalaawy explores memory, loss, regeneration, and the passage of time. Ephemeral forms including flowers, butterflies, domestic vessels, family photographs, and ghostly figures hold traces of shared human experience, drifting between past and present, presence and absence.  

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Nada Elkalaawy, A Soft Burning, 2026, Oil on canvas, 168 x 122 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Lawrie Shabibi.