Aliaa Elgready's Untitled, 2023, is an embroidered map that reflects the intrusion of darkness into various aspects of life. The main theme underlying this work is the notion of black winds, or الرياح السوداء in Arabic  (in reference to Prophet Solomon’s gift to control the winds in Islamic texts) seeping through the lush and vibrant flora. It is important to note that this piece was created during the ongoing war and devastation occurring in Gaza and Sudan in 2023-2024. For the artist, the black winds represent falsehoods in relation to the history of our lands and of society in general, which have led us to the current condition we are living through. The darkness, as depicted in the piece, is all-consuming, starkly standing out within the surrounding colors as though drawing in the light around it.

For Elgready, the continuous strife that we must contend with has effectively turned our own lives into a kind of jigsaw puzzle made up of bits and pieces that we are always trying to keep together. For instance, the flowers are depicted as quite delicate and intricate; however, under the microscope, viruses and microbes take on the same shape as the pretty flowers, especially ones pertaining to Corona viruses such as Covid-19 which had upturned lives across the globe in 2019-2022. Similarly, these seemingly beautiful looking floral elements symbolize the facades that people in power put on in order to gain control over their population, suggesting that there is a monstrosity underneath that is brought forward through the black patches.

Technically this piece was created as fragments of patchwork which were then put together as a larger puzzle that reflects a visual and tangible map of our reality. The artist chose textiles as the medium because of the significance that fabric has with humans across their lives: exceedingly intimate as it is always in contact with human skin and thus interacting with that skin in the most sensorial way possible. When creating this piece, Elgready was busy preparing for her solo exhibition, titled Re-envision, in 2023 at Gallery Misr, which should be an exciting and joyous occasion. Instead, the state of the outside world, the wars and strife that are afflicting the Arab region, swept in to overtake this moment.

Signed and dated on lower front left