Lalla Essaydi at Howard Yezerski Gallery

LALLA ESSAYDI: Converging Territories
March 18 - April 19, 2005
Opening Reception Saturday March 19, 3:30 – 5:30pm

Howard Yezerski Gallery is proud to announce Converging Territories an exhibition of photographs by Lalla Essaydi. In this series of large format color portraits of Arab women and children Essaydi continues to address the complex reality of Arab female identity from her own unique perspective of personal experience. Returning to an unoccupied family-owned house in Morocco, Essaydi painstakingly covers the space with cloth covered in Islamic calligraphy written in henna. She then paints the clothes and the bodies of the women with the same calligraphy before photographing them in front of the background.


Much of Essaydi’s work is about her cultural identity and the journey that she has undertaken. With a quiet dignity and pride in her culture she deals with complex cultural issues including Western stereotypes of Arab women. “In my art, I wish to present myself through multiple lenses --- as artist, as Moroccan, as Saudi, as traditionalist, as Liberal, as Muslim.”


Essaydi began her art training while living in Saudi Arabia. She attended the L’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris in the early 1990’s and then received her BFA from Tufts University in 1999. In 2003 she received her MFA from Tufts University/ The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her work can be found in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, Williams College Museum of Art, The Kodak Museum, The Fries Museum; The Netherlands, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and The Columbus Museum of Art.
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