Adel El Siwi born in 1952 in Behera, Egypt. He studied medicine at Cairo University between 1970 and 1976, but simultaneously indulged in independent study at the Faculty of Fine Arts between 1974 and 1975. In 1980 he relocated to Milan in Italy, where he lived and worked for a decade before moving back to Cairo, where he continues to live and work.
El Siwi has had numerous solo shows at venues including Mashrabia Gallery of Contemporary Art, Cairo (1988, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1995, 2006); Epreuve d’Artiste, Beirut (1993); Accademia d’Egitto, Rome (1996); Ammar Farhat, Tunis (2003); Al Riwaq, Manama (2003); Atassy Gallery, Damascus (2004); French Cultural Center, Alexandria (2005); Artspace, Dubai (2007, 2012); Mahmoud Khalil Museum, Cairo (2010); Galerie Inception, Paris (2012). Artspace London (2013)
He has participated in the Cairo Biennale (1996, 2008), the Sharjah Biennial (1997), the Venice Biennale (1997) and ( 2009). His work has been included in a number of group exhibitions, among them Rencontres Africaines, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris (1994); Modernities and Memories, Transafrican Art, Orlando Museum, Miami, (2000); Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East, (organized by the British Museum), Dubai (2008); Oum Kalsoum: La quatrième pyramide, IMA, Paris (2008); ItaliaArabia, Chelsea Art Museum, New York (2008). He was invited by “Le Laboratoire: Sculpture urbaine” to project his work onto historical buildings in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1996), Grenoble, France (2000), Alger, Algeria, (2003). 25 years of Arab creativity, Institute of the Arab World, Paris (2012) ; Contemporary Egyptian Art: Havana – Cuba (2010); Traveling exhibition "Contemporary African Art" Casablanca 2019- Abidjan 2020 “Lend me your Dream Casablanca, Dakar , 2019 , Abidjan 2020”.
Collections : Museum of Modern Art Cairo, the Institute of the Arab World Paris, al Mathaf the Doha Museum Qatar, the British Museum London, the Guggenheim Museum Abu Dhabi, the Museum of African Art “Macaal” Marrakech , Chamber of Commerce Dubai.
In addition to his career as a visual artist, El Siwi has translated numerous art historical texts into Arabic by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Paul Klee.