About Miret Habib

Through the lens of a British- born Egyptian, I am concerned with representing and re-understanding the breadth of my culture through my artistic practice. My body of work examines the personal in which it draws inspiration from cultural memory and images that I associate with Egypt. This is explored in my cross-disciplinary practice that is deeply rooted in painterly language in which it recombines the multiplicity of Egyptian culture. Each piece I create is simultaneously an extension of the past, where I have come from and what I have encountered. 

I am interested in the relationship between the depiction of a culture and my experience of it: I embody the role of an interpreter and witness. How do we react when the perception of our reality is challenged? How can we legitimately lay claim to memories – our own or those of others?

Undeniably the performative staging and arrangement of my practice abstracts the performers as the historical motifs and stereotypes that focus on the Egyptian culture being nothing more than the Pyramids and Tutankhamen. The bias of the Western gaze and the hierarchy of images and visual representation of my culture is examined. 

​The physical and aesthetic use of wallpaper and carpet designs references the commodification of symbols for aesthetic purposes and power rather than their original meaning. The repetitive patterns are ultimately a visual seduction used to package narratives around consumerism and the marketplace. Prioritising the idea of how much we can learn about a culture through observation and depictions: taking the motifs as they are- unfiltered. My work is essentially an unobtrusive glimpse of a vibrant space. A space that I consider home.