Zeinab Khalifa

Combining designs into various styles that are mythical, imaginative, and sometimes anthropomorphic. Khalifa was born the daughter of a wholesale grocer in 1951 in the central Cairo district of Attaba. Surrounded by art, tradition, and craftsmanship, Zeinab Khalifa grew up in a very rich childhood. The family moved to Maadi in 1969, and that's when Zeinab started her philosophy studies at Ain Shams University which influenced her design ideologies and broadened her thought spectrum. The shift towards jewelry creation happened at a later stage, after having children. However, the shift from philosophy to making art and jewelry wasn't much of a leap. She says philosophy is omnipresent in daily life, it includes all the arts and exists in her work as it helps her see things from a variety of angles. Zeinab Khalifa has been making jewelry for 28 years, and come to learn a lot about the craft. She considers herself a protector for the industry and her dream is to revive a dying craft that once shaped our history in Egypt. It is unmistakably Egyptian and seems to have its own language of design. Her Jewelry focuses on figures and strongly reflects stories of history and culture without any labelings or categories. Every piece is designed by herself. Handmade by a team of artisans who are experienced in the industry, talented, and unique. Mostly silver-based, her earrings, necklaces, cufflinks, keyrings, and brooches are elaborate but not flashy, odd, happily imperfect, clean, and “international.”

Islamic, Pharaonic, Christian and popular motifs are combined into various styles that are mythical, imaginative, sometimes anthropomorphic – as well as geometric patterns and looping lines. Designs also feature eyes, hands, fish, snakes, Arabic letters, whole faces, columns, scarabs, birds, crosses, and crescents. There’s also an aspect that is perhaps humorous, sometimes coming at the expense of easy practicality – like rings with stones that extend outward by an inch. Khalifa also has an art practice, once said by writer and curator Bassam El Baroni to work “on both the conscious and unconscious levels of cultural production, imbuing solid conceptual constructs with bursts of expressive energy,” a description that could apply equally to her jewelry.