Meriem Bouderbala

Meriem Bouderbala is a Tunisian artist, born in Tunis in 1960, who lives and works in Paris and Tunis. She paints on canvas, paper, glass and fabric, at times mixing sand or iron filings into her colours. Her practice also takes in photography, where she stages herself, and ceramics, collage, textile and installation.

Bouderbala has spoken of her double French and Tunisian origin and culture as a constant influence. Much of her work questions the fantasies that Orientalism projected onto the 'Oriental woman', and considers women's condition in the Arab world. In the late 1990s she made red chalk drawings on large sheets of oiled paper, on glass and on squares of silk. Hypnos (2009) shows a woman's bare torso bound tightly in fabric. Her photographic series Tératogénèse (2011) addresses what is done to women and their bodies.

She studied engraving and painting at the École des Beaux-Arts d'Aix-en-Provence, then engraving at the Chelsea School of Art in London. She had a solo exhibition at the Institut du monde arabe, Paris, in 1989. In 2009 Galerie CMOOA in Rabat gave her a solo show, Etoffes cutanées. She has curated exhibitions in Tunis, including Phototropisme at Galerie El Borj in 2009. France named her a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2010.