Cover via Deena Mohamed

In Cairo’s vibrant creative scene, a new generation of artists is redefining the line between graphic design and fine art. Their work draws from heritage, personal narrative and contemporary life, and is expressed as much through digital media as through physical, printed objects.

These Egyptian artists reflect a profound shift: they do not merely illustrate, but also design; they do not just paint, but conceptualise. Here are six emerging Cairo-based creators whose work deserves attention.

Nada Abouelmaati

Nada Abouelmaati creates art inspired by the textures of everyday Egyptian life, proverbs, traditions, street scenes, and snippets of Cairo vernacular. Her evolution has been fascinating: she began with architectural sketches, photography and hand drawings, and gradually moved into digital work.

What sets Nada apart is her ability to merge heritage motifs with the pixel-based realities of modern life. Recently, she was featured in a merchandise collection inspired by Egyptian streets, where her illustrations were translated onto textiles, demonstrating how her storytelling truly bridges digital concepts and physical form.

Deena Mohamed

Deena Mohamed has long been a cornerstone of the Arab comic scene. Her work, including graphic novels such as Qahera and the Shubeik Lubeik trilogy, addresses social issues, gender dynamics and identity with candour and bold colour. She writes and draws in both Arabic and English, reaching a broad audience.

At platforms such as CairoComix, her presence is not just that of a comic artist but also a designer: her books are beautifully crafted, and her visual language feels as much like a graphic design narrative as a comic story. Deena’s work illustrates how serious topics can be explored through playful, accessible visuals, creating both impact and beauty.

Noor Taher

Noor Taher offers a deeply personal vision rooted in cultural and spatial context. Trained in architecture, Noor uses oil paint to evoke her surroundings, the street rhythms, the heritage fragments, and the social drama. Her vivid colours and expressive compositions ask us to immerse ourselves in memory. Whether she is painting street football, crowded urban celebrations, or quiet architectural corners, her scenes feel like living snapshots.

What distinguishes Noor is her dual practice: she presents her paintings as oil on canvas, but also makes them available digitally, giving her audience a choice between digital formats and physical prints.

Noor El‑Waylly

Noor El‑Waylly translates her inner life into visual narratives that are at once intimate and universal. Her digital drawings often explore conflict, emotional, social, or psychological, weaving moments of darkness with delicate light.

Her style is subtle: she uses soft strokes and muted palettes punctuated by hints of brightness that suggest hope or reflection. Drawing principally in digital media, she skilfully balances realism with a minimalist aesthetic. Each work seems to harbour a secret meaning, inviting viewers to pause and interpret.

Mariam Moataz

Mariam Moataz is a multi-media artist whose experimentation spans oil, watercolour, and pencil. Her paintings often read like narratives: each piece seems to tell a story, provoke reflection, or invite debate. Some of her works are quietly contemplative, others are bolder and enigmatic. Mariam’s strength lies not just in her technical skill but also in her conceptual courage.

Her artworks invite different interpretations from every viewer, turning the room into a space for dialogue. Although she works more in traditional media, her themes and techniques resonate with the digital‑native generation, making her a meaningful contributor to the pixels-to-prints conversation.

Toka El Sayed

Toka El Sayed is a digital artist who delights in vibrant colour and playful visuals. Her work frequently draws on heritage, offering layered stories in every piece. Toka’s style combines cartoonish forms with subtle symbolism, often embedding hidden messages or cultural references beneath her bold use of colour.

She works both digitally and on paper, ensuring that her visuals translate across multiple platforms. Like Nada, she contributed to the Egyptian street‑stories merch collection, showing how her illustrations can live as wearable or collectable designs.

Loay Ashraf

Loay Ashraf is an animator and cartoonist whose work spans both digital and print storytelling. At CairoComix, he featured his graphic-novel style illustrations, demonstrating a striking ability to create narrative worlds for a broad audience, from children to adults.

Loay’s animations and comics evoke a sense of play while maintaining a polished design sensibility. By converting his animated ideas into printed graphic novels, he embodies the very essence of the pixels-to-prints movement.

Fatma Elzhraa Ashraf

Fatma Elzhraa Ashraf is a comic and webtoon artist whose practice extends beyond panels. She designs stickers, anime-style avatars, and illustrative merchandise, building a strong connection with her audience.

Her work was featured at CairoComix this year, highlighting her as a creator who not only tells stories but also curates a tangible world for her followers. Her style is polished, emotive and commercially responsive, making digital concepts materialise in prints and products.

These artists illustrate the dynamic energy of Cairo’s creative youth. They do not confine themselves to one medium; instead, they fluidly move between screens and canvases, between personal expression and design utility.

Their work underscores a critical moment in contemporary art: the point at which digital practices are no longer momentary but have become objects we can wear, display, and cherish. This is not just a visual trend, it is a cultural shift, where memory, place and identity are being reinvented through the convergence of art and design.