Lalla Essaydi

Lalla Essaydi’s career as an artist has encompassed painting, mixed media, and video, but recently she has devoted herself 
to photography.

New York-based, Moroccan-born artist Lalla Essaydi’s newest series – “Les Femmes du Maroc” – considers the complex nature of Arab feminine identity, and the concept of past and present. Drawing inspiration from iconic 19th-century American and European Orientalist paintings, Essaydi recreates these images (minus the male figures and decorative details), carefully posing Moroccan women and draping them in white fabric. Using henna, she paints in Arabic calligraphic script the writings from her personal journal, covering every surface – women’s skin, fabric, walls and floors.
LINK Lalla Essaydi