Baya Mahieddine and Lalla Essaydi

Coming from distinct cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, Algerian painter Baya Mahieddine (born Fatma Haddad, commonly known as Baya) and Moroccan photographer Lalla Essaydi predominantly feature women in their artwork through their female gaze. Despite Baya’s reticence to discuss her colorful and unique depiction of women, animals, and vegetation, her mesmerizing gouaches have inspired abundant commentary by poets, writers, curators, and artists. Through her accomplishments and artwork, she moreover instills “hope” among her fellow female compatriots in their “combat de femme” as they contend with gender-specific quotidian struggles (Khanna 210; Djebar 18). In contrast to Baya’s reserve, Essaydi deluges her public with words, whether through her photo/calli-graphic texts or artist statements and interviews in which she informs her audiences about the content of her work. By inscribing (un)veiled women’s bodies with Arabic calligraphy, she produces provocative photographs that incite an introspective critique of the Western gaze while simultaneously sensitizing her Arab publics to reactionary compulsions that dictate the (in)visibility of women. The objective of this article is therefore to examine how their art corrects Orientalist misinterpretations and questions gender-bound Arab traditions. From post-colonial and feminist angles, I argue that both women usetheir female gaze to create artwork that serves to reimag(in)e girlhoods of Maghrebi women.