When the Dates Turn Red: Hoda Tawakol

For her first exhibition at Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde entitled When the Dates Turn Red, Franco-Egyptian artist Hoda Tawakol researched traditional ritual practices and imagery associated with those pivotal, transitional and transformative moments in a woman’s ‘cycle of life’. Born in London, Tawakol’s French, German and Egyptian upbringing is integral to her work and practice. 

Tawakol’s broad practice encompasses hand-dyed and sewn textile pieces, mixed media sculptures, fabric collages, and installations interweaving textures, grids and lattices in addition to works on paper. Her approach to contemporary textile art is deeply rooted in the feminist movement of the 1970s that revived the medium as a critical and discursive practice embedded in the history of women’s knowledge and labour. Her work attempts to deconstruct symbols and archetypes that beset female agency.