Visual artist Lalla A. Essaydi grew up in Morocco and now lives between there and the United States. In her art, she often combines Islamic calligraphy with representations of the female body to address the complex reality of Arab female identity from the unique perspective of personal experience. Much of her work returns to her Moroccan girlhood, looking back on it as an adult woman caught somewhere between past and present, and as an artist, exploring the language in which to “speak” from this uncertain space.

Often appropriating Orientalist imagery from the Western painting tradition, she invites viewers to reconsider colonialist mythologies. Working in numerous media—including painting, video, film, installation, and analog photography—she explains that, “In my art, I wish to present myself through multiple lenses—as artist, as Moroccan, as traditionalist, as Liberal, as Muslim. In short, I invite viewers to resist stereotypes.”

Essaydi received her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/TUFTS University in May 2003. Her work is represented in the collections of such museums as the The Louvre, Paris; the British National Museum, London; and the Art Institute of Chicago. Her visit to UNC Greensboro is organized by the School of Art’s Falk Visiting Artist Program and the Weatherspoon Art Museum.