KHEDIJA JEDDI ESSAIED (b.1976)

Born in 1976 in Tunis where she is based. Khedija Essaied Jeddi is a self-taught contemporary artist, recognized for her pastel drawing work using embroidery, sewing, as well as the fragmentation of old newspaper archives. 

After her studies in International Trade in Tunis and a diploma in Knowledge Management in Sophia Antipolis, the artist worked in the packaging industry until 2007; the date when she settled in Kuwait, then in the United Arab Emirates. In Abu Dhabi, she learned classic techniques from an embroiderer and developed a passion for weavings, notably old linen, which will be present in almost all of her works. An observer and sensitive to the world around her, Khedija Essaied Jeddi is an artist who holds a "child's gaze upon an adult world".

Through encounters, readings, as well as public and private life events, she builds and fleshes out her reflection around issues that are dear to her: migrants, self-narrative, and social inequalities are part of them. Her work is a series of meticulous little scenes, on a child's scale, pushing the viewer to modify their posture, or and thus to change their point of view.

The text that accompanies most of her visual creations is an integral part of the proposed work, questioning an intimate, and opposing, a childlike aesthetic to adult words, harsh and grave. The artist enjoys animating this colorful scenography. A work that marries and handles the playful with the serious.

︎ @khedijaj