Saudi artist Halla Bint Khalid’s retrospective explores personal identity, motherhood and woman power
Being a female artist in the Saudi Kingdom is hard, but Halla Bint Khalid says it's exactly what makes the challenge "more attractive." Her latest exhibition, 'Tasleemah' at the Tbilisi Museum of Modern Art in Georgia gives a glimpse into the interior world of this Riyadh-born figurative artist who's also a pioneering children's author.
Breaking Conventions
At the museum, in what she describes as an "Indian-influenced" long gown, Khalid mingles among guests and visitors, dwarfed by the sheer scale of the exhibition. The works displayed here span decades of her artistic practice and hold forth on themes familiar to her—children, ordinary women and men, often seen from an empathetic viewpoint. Walking through the exhibition, one gets a good glimpse into Khalid's highly unconventional body of work. Richly expressive and delicately drawn, her art is full of symbolism and subversion and at times, not afraid to break the glass ceiling with playful absurdity.