“Through collages with painted canvas, fabric, and paper, Toukhy creates layered pieces combining images of herself, female family members who sew, and women workers in the cotton industries. Women’s work in textile production and on cotton plantations, historically unrecognized and exploited both in the U.S. and in Egypt, provides a connecting legacy in which Toukhy also places herself, considering the high unemployment rate and gender pay gap present in the arts economy today.”
-from press release for solo show at Trestle Gallery (2021)
We Spun Roses for Bread and Still They Starved, 2021, canvas, acrylic, oil pastel, photographic prints, crochet, ink, 59 in x 49 in
We Spun Roses For Bread and Still They Starved, 2021, Detail: collage of child American female textile worker and enslaved woman picking cotton
We Spun Roses For Bread and Still They Starved, 2021, detail of layered arms and gears
We Spun Roses for Bread and Still They Starved, detail of collaged photos of Egyptian and American women picking cotton with my own hands drawing, connecting un/underpaid women’s work
Inheritance, 2021, canvas, acrylic, crochet, photographic prints, 53 in x 42 in
To Escape, Draw Yourself a Tender Red Line, 2021, acrylic, crochet, paper, walnut ink, watercolor, photographic print, embroidery thread, 12.5 in x 12 in
The Entertainer, 2021, photographic prints, canvas, ink, acrylic, 19.5 in x 12.5 in
A collage combining my own image working on a mural site and cotton plants superimposed over a fictitious Orientalist illustration of a bellydancer. The British referred to Egyptian cotton as “white gold” during their colonial rule of Egypt,
The Entertainer, detail
Earth Eruption, 2021, acrylic, thread, photographic print, paper, crochet, 9 in x 12 in. Private collection.
Collage of Orientalist photo of a North African woman placed in the center of a silhouette of a European colonial soldier, in the background
Chop, 2021, watercolor, ink, photographic print, paper, pencil, 9 in x 8 in. Private collection.
We Made This White Gold, 2021, canvas, acrylic, photographic prints, ink, paper, 19.5 in x 12.5 in
The British referred to Egyptian cotton as “white gold” during their colonial rule of Egypt.