Badr Abd El Moghny. Photo by author.

“Everything is becoming really hard.” Badr Abd El Moghny is apologizing for raising the modest entry fee to his mud and sandstone, fairytale-like home and art gallery. Since the revolution and in the midst of uncertainty, he tells us, prices have risen and he has to pay more for the postcards of his work and brochures that detail his biography.

Badr Abd El Moghny is a self-taught artist who was born, and continues to live in, the Farafra Oasis in Egypt’s Western Desert. He describes the house that he built in the Oasis as his “dream” and embraces his self-appointed moniker “An Artist with a Dream.”

Surrealist paintings and sculptures fill the house, and it is easy to see why he cites Dali and Picasso as inspiration. El Moghny has exhibited in England, Germany and Cairo and says he has opportunities to travel more with his work but prefers to stay at home. That way he doesn’t get homesick.

Photo by author.

Photo by author.

Photo by author.

Photo by author.