Have you heard of Baya? The self-taught Algerian artist Baya Mahieddine (who went by her first name) is arguably the best-known female painter in the country’s history, but is relatively unknown elsewhere. Her enigmatic and powerful paintings were inspired by the mix of Arab and Berber cultures she encountered in her everyday life, and she has been described as a surrealist and a modernist, although she escapes any real classification. The artist was a huge influence not only the Parisian avant-garde (both Pablo Picasso and André Breton praised her) but also the practices of North African post-colonial art movements during the mid-twentieth century, including the work of M’Hamed Issiakhem, Abdelkader Guermaz and Mohammed Khadda. An exhibition of her enigmatic gouaches is currently at Elmarsa Gallery, in Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue.
