1st UK Joint Solo Exhibitions 7th-11th October 2025, Mall Galleries, London, UK TRANSMUTE by Bushra Fakhoury and INCLUSION by Mal Fostock
British artists Mal Fostock and Bushra Fakhoury are unveiling never-before-seen works during Frieze at Mall Galleries, Pall Mall, London. INCLUSION in the West Gallery is the 1st UK solo exhibition for Mal Fostock. Bushra Fakhoury will be exhibiting her new show TRANSMUTE in the North Galleries and this will also include recent collaboration works with her son Mal Fostock. They will display a combined 100+ pieces across print, painting, and sculpture.
British artist, born in Lebanon, Bushra spent her pre-school years living between Beirut, the Ivory Coast, and France. From a young age, Bushra learnt how to sculpt flowers and animals out of marzipan at an all-girls Catholic convent boarding school. This early experience in sculpting fuelled Bushra’s passion for creative expression.
Bushra was guided by renowned Polish expressionist painter Stanislaw Frenkiel RWA, as well as Sir Eduardo Paolozzi and Dame Elisabeth Frink. Her artist inspirations are Picasso, Goya, and Rodin, as you can envision through her bold and emotive work. Working without preliminary sketches, her art process is spontaneous and fluid, using a rich variety of materials such as resin, bronze, plaster, and ceramic.
Bushra’s metal sculptures use objects found in marketplaces across Europe. Her work emerges from the intricate intersection of personal experience, political insight, and a global vision. Bushra has been inspired by world issues, nature, and human society. In addition to her three-dimensional work, Bushra’s digital artwork offers a striking commentary on the nature of community.
Bushra is a seeker of knowledge, with an extensive art education in Lebanon and the UK, where she received her PhD doctorate of philosophy in Art education from the University of London, Institute of Education. Her love of myths, fables, carnivals, and folklore is seen in her fantastical sculptures, ceramics, and “objets trouvés”.
Her artistic journey has been shaped by an ever-changing political landscape, personal experiences like living and teaching with the Samburus, in the forests of Kenya. Passionate about nature, animals, and societal issues, Bushra’s craftsmanship exudes emotive commentary on global topics associated with feelings of power, laughter, joy, human agony, and anger.
Ahead of Transmute we met with Bushra to view her public sculptures.
Bushra Fakhoury in Cambridge: Sculpting Life into Public Space
Saturday’s viewing in Cambridge began with meeting Bushra Fakhoury, who guided us through her monumental sculptures. She moved between them at an unhurried pace, pausing often, speaking as much with her hands as with her words. As we walked, she explained her process: every sculpture begins on a small scale in clay or plaster before being realised in monumental form. For her, enlarging a work is never just technical – it is how the message at its heart becomes visible to the wider world. And what matters most is always that message.
Her story is one of crossings – born in Beirut, shaped by years in the Ivory Coast and France, later mentored in Britain by Paolozzi, Frink and Stanisław Frenkiel. From those different threads she carries a conviction: art is a bridge, not a boundary.
She spoke with particular warmth about her years with the Samburu tribe in Kenya. What she found there was not a new style but an essence: the simplicity of life, the rhythm of sharing, the absence of materialism, the deep connection with nature and animals. She had gone there to write a book about herbal medicine, but quickly realised such knowledge could not be captured on the page. Instead, she gave back directly – teaching, supporting blind children, and living as part of the community. Over nine years, on and off, she calls it the best time of her life. It taught her that happiness is not a luxury, but a necessity – something her art continues to remind us of.
That message carries into her public works. In Cambridge, Danse Gwenedour embodies what she calls a ‘celebration of life’. Inspired by the folk dance of villagers in Bretagne, its seven-metre form conveys rhythm and vitality, a reminder that joy itself is part of what sustains us. Nearby, Dunamis pushes the idea of possibility. A nine-metre figure hoists an elephant above its head, symbolising the human struggle to achieve excellence and the relentless effort required to reach our goals and dreams. Fakhoury explained that the act of holding the elephant high pays homage to traits we share yet often forget: family ties, solidarity, compassion and cooperation. The pointed hat represents knowledge carried through the ages, while the elephant itself calls us to remember – both the extraordinary memory of the animal and the urgent need to protect endangered species.
Her wider practice speaks the same language. The Transmute series, sculpted from driftwood scarred by deforestation, does not erase those marks but honours them. The scars become part of the skin of the work — a meditation on loss, survival, and care. Alongside this, she often returns to bronze, a material she treasures for its permanence and longevity. Bronze, for her, ensures the values embodied in her sculptures endure, carrying their message to future generations.
She resists the slickness of digital planning, choosing instead to trust material, instinct and process. For Fakhoury, art is not about perfection but about presence – being alive to what emerges.
By the end of our walk, it was clear that the weight of her sculptures is not their bronze or their scale, but the values they embody. Bushra Fakhoury sculpts reminders: compassion, resilience, solidarity, and above all, the simple but urgent need to be happy.
The North Galleries will have on display a selection of Bushra Fakhoury’s sculptures exhibited along collaborative photographic works created by Mal and Bushra.
“While working on the collaborative works with Bushra, I was excited with the dialogue between us as she always was thinking out of the box.
All throughout my childhood, every time I walked into her studio, all the various sculptures and objects would play on my imagination. Later in life, I started to photograph these objects, some she had sculpted and others she had found and collected. I wanted to create a space through photography that would allow these objects to live another life. It was as if my and my mother’s deep psyches came together to speak with one voice. We explored the shared language between us which is rooted in imagination, bold expression and a desire to allow the creative process to unfold naturally” Mal, 25 July 2025
“When we work together, even though our approaches are completely different, it gels together as if it was one soul. I am blessed to have 2 children who follow their creative endeavor. Mal’s genius is like a rough diamond with many facets still to be explored. He has always helped keep me grounded while I explore my creativity with no limits. It is as if I was a kite flying freely in the clouds and he was holding on to the string to keep me from getting lost.
Rami is a visionary and expresses his creativity through his ongoing artistic journey with the Mandrake Hotel, where many of both mine and Mal’s works are also displayed and play an important role in the hotel’s ongoing dialogue between light and dark.” Bushra, 24 July 2025
For more information visit Bushra’s website
Exhibition info – Mall Galleries