#Columbus museum of art dangerous women skin
#Columbus museum of art dangerous women series

“By reclaiming the rich tradition of calligraphy and interweaving it with the traditionally female art of henna,” she explains, “I have been able to express, and yet, in another sense, dissolve the contradictions I have encountered in my culture: between hierarchy and fluidity, between public and private space, between the richness and the confining aspects of Islamic traditions.” What is key here is that the art of calligraphy itself is traditionally a male-dominated realm, yet Essaydi appropriates it with the ultra-feminine medium of henna (used by women to create decorative patterns for special occasions such as weddings).

#Columbus museum of art dangerous women skin

This layer of calligraphy conceals the uncovered parts of the female bodies and in this sense assumes an allegorical dimension: even their bare skin becomes her canvas as she covers their ankles, legs, arms, wrists and faces in row upon row of tight script.

#Columbus museum of art dangerous women series

In the series that followed, Les Femmes du Maroc (2005-2007), Essaydi arranges her subjects in poses directly inspired by 19th century Orientalist imagery reminiscent of paintings by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Eugène Delacroix and Jean-Léon Gérôme.Įssaydi uses intricate calligraphic text drawn in henna instead of ink to fill everything from the walls to the fabrics her Odalisques wear. In the series, Converging Territories (2002-2004), Essaydi develops a unique working method and set of visual devices that include applying a deliberately indecipherable calligraphic form alluding to Kufic script using the medium of henna to her subjects’ faces, bodies, and environments. The uncropped white borders of the film emphasise that she fabricates her settings and identities, mocking the Orientalists’ invented fantasy scenes, yet hers are based on historical, social, and cultural facts. This meticulous process of image making is crucial to Essaydi’s oeuvre. Spanning her major bodies of work from 2003 to 2013, the exhibition includes work from series including: Converging Territories, Harem, Les Femmes Du Maroc, and Bullets Revisited. Essaydi’s photographs are the result of a complex performance-based process comprised of painting, calligraphy, interior design, costume design, stage directing, and finally photography. Leila Heller is proud to present Still in Progress, the first solo exhibition in the Middle East by the New York-based Moroccan artist Lalla Essaydi. Lalla Essaydi: Crossing Boundaries, Bridging Cultures (ACR Edition, 2015)

– not simply because she is veiled or turns away–

“I wish for my work to be as vividly present