This October, the Mall Galleries on Pall Mall will host the first UK joint solo exhibitions by two British artists, Mal Fostock and Bushra Fakhoury, presenting more than one hundred works across print, painting, photography, and sculpture. The West Gallery will feature Fostock’s Inclusion, while the North Gallery showcases Fakhoury’s Transmute—which also includes collaborative works created by mother and son together.
Bushra Fakhoury: Monumental Vision
Talking on her works the renowned sculptor Bushra Fakhoury who brings Transmute a body of work that spans decades of artistic enquiry to Mall Galleries stated.
“My sculptures encompass sustained effort over many years. It shows a steady search for dynamic animal and human form – grotesque, ironic, and a lot of humour, but invariably opulent and vehement. At the same time it is well-contained within the norms of stylistic discipline,” she explains. “I undertake commissions for portraits and monumental sculptures in any material. I was privileged to have lived in exotic countries, such as Ivory Coast, France, Kenya and Lebanon which had a great influence on my work. I started sculpting at a very early age of seven at the convent where I was taught to use marzipan to create flowers and animals. From this point forward this fuelled my imagination and pushed my creativity to the limit, enabling me to concentrate on the form in its purest expression.”
Best known for her magnificent monumental public works, Fakhoury is the first British-Lebanese female artist to be twice chosen by Westminster City Council for its City of Sculpture programme. Dunamis—a towering nine-metre bronze resin sculpture of a man balancing an elephant—was unveiled in Park Lane in 2013, followed by Danse Gwenedour at Marble Arch in 2017. Speaking recently in Cambridge, where both pieces are currently on view, Fakhoury reflected: “It symbolizes human struggle to achieve excellence, pushing boundaries to make the impossible possible. We need to prioritise, work positively, and relentlessly towards reaching our goals, and dreams.”
Her practice is spontaneous and fluid, often working without preliminary sketches, and draws inspiration from masters such as Picasso, Goya, and Rodin. Using resin, bronze, plaster, and ceramic, her sculptures merge personal memory, political awareness, and global concerns such as deforestation and the fragility of species.
Talking to a group of some of the UK’s most prestigious art and arts and culture journalists in Cambridge about the process of making works like Danse Gwenedour and Dunamis Fakhoury stated. “Each one of these big ones takes me a year. I make the clay model. I do small ones. And then I go to Liverpool and I do another one, one metre. And from the one metre, they do the scaffolding with the pentagram. That’s about ten metres and I go up and down and do it”.
She has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, with works sold at Sotheby’s and held in collections across England, America, France, Turkey, and Lebanon. Awards from the Royal West of England Academy, the Society of Women Artists, and the Torpedo Art Center in Washington D.C. confirm her as a force in contemporary sculpture, amd culture.
Mal Fostock: Inclusion
Running alongside in the West Gallery is Mal Fostock’s Inclusion, his first solo exhibition in the UK. Curated by the artist himself, the show offers a deeply personal journey through portraiture, painting, print, sculpture, and photography. At its heart is Fostock’s conviction in the universal acceptance of all people, regardless of gender, colour, race, sexuality, or religion—a belief grounded in the principle of prior unity.
“A multifaceted artist, Mal’s practice flows fluidly across disciplines, embracing both traditional techniques and contemporary technologies to reflect the breadth of his inquiry into what it means to be alive and connected,” write curators. For Mal, art is always about people: “Through art I’m able to further explore and move beyond familiarity and participate in the world in a more magical way.”
Educated at St Paul’s School, Wimbledon College of Art, and the New York Studio School, Fostock was shaped by encounters with influential artists including Francesco Clemente, Stanislav Frenkiel RWA, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, and Dame Elizabeth Frink. “His works, whether captured in the studio through painting or in the spontaneity of the street through photography, seek to honour the uniqueness of each subject and capture the moment as art, story, and image.”
A Dialogue of Generations
Together, Inclusion and Transmute reveal both continuity and contrast like the mother son duo: the son exploring human presence through multiple media, the mother sculpting form and spirit into monumental statement. Their joint presentation at the Mall Galleries situates two distinct voices in dialogue, while also offering audiences the rare opportunity to see their collaborative works side by side.
Fakhoury’s words resonate as a closing note to both exhibitions: “Holding the elephant in a high position gives homage to the traits that we share and gradually forget, such as family ties, solidarity, compassion and cooperation.” These values run like a thread through the practice of both artists—different in form, but united in vision.
More about the artists and the exhibition HERE:.
Mal Fostock’s website: https://malfostock.com/
Bushra Fakhoury’s website: https://bfakhoury.com/
Mal Fostock’s exhibition called INCLUSION will be at The Mall Galleries, West Gallery, London SW1Y 5AS from 7th-11th October 2025: https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/exhibitions-events/inclusion-mal-fostock
Bushra Fakhoury’s exhibition called TRANSMUTE will be at The Mall Galleries, North Gallery, London SW1Y 5AS from 7th-11th October 2025: https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/exhibitions-events/transmute-bushra-fakhoury
The exhibitions are both FREE:
Address:Mall Galleries
The Mall (near Trafalgar Square)
London, SW1