At the foot of the Pyramids, Alex Proba creates a monumental world

New York artist Alex Proba has long turned heads with her exuberant large-scale murals, rugs, clothing and candy-coloured homewares. Now, her creative lens is widening beyond the confines of interiors, quite literally. For her latest installation, ‘Echoes of the Infinite’, Proba has imagined an entire landscape, set against the backdrop of the Giza Pyramids in Cairo. Part of Art D’Egypte’s ‘Forever Is Now’ exhibition, on view until 6 December, the work realises a monumental moment Proba had as a girl, her most ambitious creation to date.

‘The first time I visited the Giza Plateau was as a teenager,’ she says, ‘and it felt completely otherworldly – like stepping into another realm. It was such a powerful experience, and I’ve felt drawn to its energy ever since.’ This early encounter inspired her entire installation, an interactive encounter crafted in collaboration with the Amsterdam natural-stone designer SolidNature. In fact, Proba wasn’t able to install the work in person, having just welcomed her baby, so the memory remained a guiding force. ‘I carried that experience with me throughout the process,’ she says. ‘The vastness, the shifting light, the silence were still vivid and became the emotional foundation of my project.’

‘Echoes of the Infinite’ stays true to the DNA of Proba’s multidisciplinary studio. It’s sculptural and colourful, yet grounded in the permanence of earthly materials, in this case stone and mineral. Every facet pays homage to Egyptian motifs and cosmology: the blue lotus symbolising renewal, celestial forms evoking the Milky Way’s navigation and scarab-inspired curves embodying transformation.

The work invites visitors to move through pathways, revealing a quiet continuum between historical legacy and the present. Proba acknowledges the gravity of creating in the shadow of structures that have stood for over 4,500 years, while asserting a distinctly contemporary voice. ‘The work doesn’t try to compete with the pyramids. It listens to them,’ she says. ‘It reflects their sense of permanence and transformation, reminding us that creation, whether through nature, stone or human hands, is a continuous act of renewal.’