Tarek El Sheikh, was born in 1969, is an Egyptian artist based in Cairo.

He had graduated of the Arts Education College of Helwan University,

Tarek had received his B.A. in 1993. He has had multiple solo exhibitions, and been

included in group exhibitions both locally and regionally. His work mainly focuses on the

subject of the clown, a motif in Egyptian vernacular culture that represents society’s

humorous individual who also encapsulates a spectrum of intense human emotion.

Tarek El Sheikh, always depicting various human expressions, the subject of the clown is

a bell-weather of the human condition in Egypt. Represented as happy, morose or

pensive, the clown serves as a representation of the effect of current social and political

realities on the Egyptian people.

He has portrayed his clown in pencil, ink, and paint.

El sheikh had various medium, he develops different styles to represent different

emotional conditions of the clown.

When u see the clown in mid-dance drawn in ink- jubilant and care-free; and move

towards sadness and glumness in the works that are painted with dark blues and greys.

Tarek moves more towards abstracting the physical outlines and features of the clown,

the body becomes bigger and more heavy-set, as i

 physically manifesting the troubles

that ail him by drawing him with his shoulders drooping.