The Playful Afterlife of Empire in Mohamed Monaiseer’s “I, Pet Lion”
How the Cairo-based artist blends warfare and fantasy in his vintage game boards.
As long as art has told us a story of beauty, it’s told us one of power. Egyptian artist Mohamed Monaiseer anchors itself in this duality in his series “I, the Pet Lion” recently presented with Cairo-based Gypsum Gallery at Art Basel Qatar, exploring how colonial history makes its way into “seductive yet insidious” objects of play. While glittering, regal and whimsical, Monaiseer’s works don’t aim to soften power’s edges, but expose how aesthetics of domination disguise themselves in even our most unassuming rituals.
Monaiseer traces how the language of conflict embeds itself in what we know play to be — if war is a game, then people are its pawns. Chessboards and Ludo sets hang beside shields and banners clad with mythical creatures, recalling childhood relics while collapsing the lines between fantasy and warfare. The lion itself best embodies this contradiction, both a protector and predator, mirroring how power presents itself as reassuring even as it remains inherently violent.
In an alluring display of painting, embroidery and khayamiya appliqué, the artist calls on the repetitive, meditative gestures of Islamic art, while tactfully disrupting precision: frayed edges and slight asymmetries fracture the illusion of order, revealing the cracks in systems that prides themseles of control. On the heels of Art Basel Qatar, we spoke with Monaiseer about “I, the Pet Lion” and the many faces of power. Read on for the full interview
Photo: Karen Dexter Photography. Courtesy Of The Artist And Gypsum Gallery.
Photo: Karen Dexter Photography. Courtesy Of The Artist And Gypsum Gallery.
Photo: Karen Dexter Photography. Courtesy Of The Artist And Gypsum Gallery.
Photo: Karen Dexter Photography. Courtesy Of The Artist And Gypsum Gallery.
Photo: Karen Dexter Photography. Courtesy Of The Artist And Gypsum Gallery.
How would you describe your artistic practice?
It’s difficult to define my practice, each project begins as a different exploration. I start with a desire to understand the events and conditions that surround me, and then search for the most suitable visual language to translate that perspective into a tangible form.
What are some of your early influences and how have they led you to central themes or focuses today?
I began with a focus on materiality and decay. I was fascinated by the transformative effects of time on objects and artworks, and I tried to distill that process within my own work. That concern remains central today — many of my pieces carry a sense of age, erosion and accumulated history.
Tell me about “I, the Pet Lion.” How did this group of works emerge?
The project began after my first visit to England, when I felt a tension between admiration for what I experienced there and my awareness of the colonial histories that enabled it — histories tied to extraction, exploitation and their lingering effects on my own context.
“I, Pet Lion” examines how contemporary systems normalize imperial power and shape collective consciousness. It reflects on how authority, belonging and submission are instilled, often beginning in childhood, and how violence and domination can be disguised as legitimacy or protection. The work addresses how occupation distorts cultural identity and traps societies between a dispossessed past and a compromised present. It considers how individuals are reduced to instruments within larger political and economic structures and how cycles of destruction and reconstruction are manufactured to sustain control.
I explore these ideas through metaphors such as games and play. Childhood games mirror adult systems: Ludo becomes a condensed metaphor for colonial expansion, while chess evokes strategy and warfare.
Photo: Karen Dexter Photography. Courtesy Of The Artist And Gypsum Gallery.
Photo: Karen Dexter Photography. Courtesy Of The Artist And Gypsum Gallery.
Photo: Karen Dexter Photography. Courtesy Of The Artist And Gypsum Gallery.
Photo: Karen Dexter Photography. Courtesy Of The Artist And Gypsum Gallery.
“Each fabric holds memory suspended between tenderness and brutality.”
How do you wield craft and textile as means of expressing collective or personal memory?
Art is a visual language built from tools and craft, whether handmade or industrial. Manual craftsmanship carries a human energy — as it diminishes, traces of humanity fade. I integrate craft to preserve that presence and to reflect on how mechanization has gradually displaced it.
Textiles, in particular, interest me because of their intimacy with the body. They exist in spaces of care and protection — clothing, bedding, domestic interiors — but also in violence, as coverings for military machinery. Each fabric holds memory suspended between tenderness and brutality.
Can you explain your choice of animals in these works and how they embody the duality of control and play?
Animals are powerful reflections of the human condition, in instinct, emotion and behavior. They remind us that beneath the rhetoric of civilization, we remain governed by primal structures of dominance and survival.
This connects to my exploration of control and play. As with board games like Ludo or chess, symbolic systems of play reveal deeper structures of power, strategy and submission. They shape thinking while masking their consequences, operating with an alluring but dangerous ambiguity.
What do you hope audiences walk away with?
I hope viewers recognize art as a language in itself. I want the work to engage with real human concerns rather than exist as pure visual pleasure. Each piece emerges from years of learning and practice, and I hope it is met with the same seriousness, opening space for new ways of seeing and understanding.
