For Pepe, art is the most personal form of expression the world has ever known. As an expert in curating private art collections, he is at the vanguard of contemporary emerging art supporting and launching artist’s careers. Pepe’s interest in Arabic art stems from his family roots in Córdoba, where he fell in love with the rich Al-Andalus heritage. A cultural producer, art advisor, enterpreneur and collector himself, Pepe is the founder of M., a creative hub operating in New York, London and Barcelona offering art advisory, communication services, branding and branded content.
Farah Al Qasimi (b.1991, United Arab Emirates) lives and works in Brooklyn and Dubai. Working primarily with photography, video and performance, Farah Al Qasimi examines postcolonial structures of power, gender and taste in the Persian Gulf and the United States. The figure of the Arab woman who plays a leading role in his work,
is praised through vibrant aesthetics and both staged and spontaneous scenarios. Using the triviality of everyday life, AlQasimi, explores the concept of nostalgia that comes with temporal disruption
Hayv Kahraman (b.1981, Iraq) lives and works in Los Angeles. A vocabulary of narrative, memory and dynamics of non-fixity found in diasporic cultures are the essence of her visual language and the product of her experience
as an Iraqi refugee/come émigré. The body as object and subject have a central role in her painting practice as she compositely embodies the artist herself and a collective.
Female artists have been toolong forgotten in art history. Around the world, there is an extraordinary number of in spiring women and there is no place where this is more perceptible than in the Middle East. Engaging with personal, as well as regional and universal topics, their impact and contribution to the cultural landscape is incomparable. From painting to installation, here are three of my favourite female artists from the Middle East;
