Egyptian artist Rabab Tantawy narrates the human story in multiple ways

Rabab Tantawy is an Egyptian artist based in Dubai whose work is rooted in storytelling through the human form.

- Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer

Over the past decade, she developed a visual language that reinterprets the figures that have appeared in her paintings since 2012. Her work often draws inspiration from Nubian aesthetics, particularly in the way she represents figures in white robes and turbans—symbols of kinship, resilience, and collective strength. Through painting, murals, and sculpture, Tantawy moves between figuration and abstraction, exploring how human presence can be expressed through movement, gesture, and composition.

Her figures have evolved from expressive forms to geometric structures and, at times, only line and colour, reflecting a dialogue between history and transformation. Her large-scale murals can be found across the UAE, including major commissions such as the Yas murals for Aldar Properties (2022, 2024) and her landmark collaboration with McLaren Racing in 2021, where she became the first artist to design a Formula I livery. Driven both by instinct and experimentation, Tantawy pushes the boundaries of representation, using art as a space for reflection on collective memory, displacement, and the unseen forces that shape human experience. "For over a decade," she says, "my work has centered on the human figure - not as an individual portrait, but as a presence shaped by history, movement, and memory.