Aidha Badr

Canvas: How did your artistic journey begin?

Aidha Badr: As a child, I would observe my mother who constantly had a sketchpad and pencil with her. I was astounded by her talent to the point of obsession, wanting to become everything she was. I have vivid memories of her staying up late at night creating a hyperrealist rendition of Cleopatra, which is still the most beautiful and remarkable work I have seen. In the fourth grade, I took her drawings to school and told my classmates that they were by me. The endless praise and compliments led me to believe the only thing that mattered was painting well. I have spent my life chasing that feeling.

I was deeply insecure when I started painting, always feeling as if I were imitating someone. My paintings didn’t resonate with me, and I wanted them to be pure and good, so I began doing self-portraits. What started as trying to understand my face and proportions led to a need for perfection. I kept painting myself until I felt some autonomy over the work. This insecurity in my technique subconsciously led me to create bigger paintings, up to four or five times my size. My thought was that if it’s not good, then at least it’s big.

You use a lot of imagery relating to childhood in your artwork. Where does this stem from?

Recently I’ve been exploring the use of memory as a medium, drawing inspiration from other people’s stories about me that I cross-reference with my own memories, which is difficult because I daydreamed a lot as a child. You gain nothing from separating reality from daydreams. Childhood memories are cyclical, overlapping, non-linear and, most importantly, resilient. My painting Memory Is An Unreliable Narrator (2022) is about an event that took place 18 years ago. I had taken down these light-green chiffon curtains to make pants, which my mother tells me were actually an eggshell colour. My recent body of work amplifies these moments of memory confusion, in terms of exploring both universal childhood experiences and my own situation. I work through my memories chronologically, exploring parallels and unravelling my childhood.

A major focus in your art is womanhood and the expectations and emotions that come with it. Who are the women you paint?

Beauty, femininity and the multifaceted nature of women inspire me. Mothers, sisters, daughters and lovers – my paintings depict female figures as the desired and the desiring. I’m inspired by women who love to be domesticated, who do not shy away from vulnerability, and who are brave enough to be wives, homemakers, and mothers. The women I paint are defined by these characteristics. Female fragility is often mistaken for weakness or even insanity, yet the women I depict are confident in their female roles, upholding traditional ideals of beauty and femininity.

You primarily use paint as a medium. How does painting allow you to work through your memories and experiences?

I’m risk-averse and very particular about what goes on the canvas. My interest lies more in a tight or rigid composition and a personal narrative, rather than in aesthetics or exploring new media. Oil paint as a medium is very forgiving. My only goal with my practice is to be good at it, which is what often stops me from exploring other possibilities – I hate to try and fail.

Is there an artwork that is particularly meaningful to you and why?

The painting Her Cloth Was Cut From Heaven, She Wished To Be Me And I Wished To Be Her (2021) helped me realise a whole new body of work that moved away from self-portraiture. This painting is essentially about me wishing to fit into doll clothes as a child, so it was about understanding myself and my childhood, as well as depicting my own desires for perfection and beauty.

How has your work evolved with the use of materials in recent years, such as in your installation for Noor Riyadh last year?

I was living in Cyprus and reluctantly began to explore other media, creating two installation pieces: We Are Where We Are Not (2022) and Between “I Love You” And “I Love You Too” The Absent Presence Of Desire Comes Alive (2022). When Noor Riyadh commissioned a work, it came about surprisingly naturally. Please Don’t Leave Me Yet We Know So Little About Each Other (2023) is an immersive installation, for which I found inspiration in the vibrant city of Alexandria.

What is it in particular about Alexandria that inspires you?

I only spent a year there, although it’s a place that I hold most dear because it’s where I shared precious memories with my grandfather. Lots of our time together was spent around his house or looking out of its windows. There was so much intensity there, which enabled me to expand my imagination as a child. There was a bright pink-and-red bathroom with heart decorations on every other tile, an entire wall with stuffed animals hanging by strings and which I depict in Grief Is Love With Nowhere To Go (2022), transparent Mickey Mouse stickers on the window that alter the colour of the sunlight as it shines through, a dining room with large wedding portraits of multiple family generations arranged carefully along the walls, a large glass cupboard full of porcelain dolls and various wooden toys, and an entire fancy living room that nobody was allowed to sit in because it was reserved for guests to demonstrate to them that we were occidentalised. My grandfather never left this house. He never needed to leave to feel inspired, he stayed in the same city, in the same neighbourhood, in the same house, looking at the same view. Growing up, I felt the same way, finding inspiration in consistency and the mundane, without feeling the urge to travel and explore in order to be inspired.

Can you discuss some of the symbolism in other works such as in All Earthly Possessions Left Behind (2022) or in Grief Is Love With Nowhere To Go (2022). What is being mourned?

All Earthly Possessions Left Behind is about the secrecy of a person’s chest of drawers, and how this disappears once they depart and purify themselves of all earthly possessions. The objects that were once contained so delicately, with extreme precision for maximum storage and organisation, become scattered, laid out in a grid, to be carefully looked through. These objects can transport you to a time and place of comfort, of childhood sublimity and endless sunsets. There is no romance or performance to these everyday objects, but there is a very real intimacy.

Grief Is Love With Nowhere To Go is my coming to terms with the sorrow of losing a loved one, in this case, my grandfather. This grief felt like an immense sadness and pain that could not be contained. But in fact, it is quite the opposite. Grief is love, it is the sweet blend of gelatine and food colouring shared between me and my grandfather. Grief is all the love I have that I am no longer able to give, it’s the objects that were left behind that I wish I’d understood, and all the unoccupied corners and spaces in which a loved one used to reside that now take form in the corners of my eyes and the hollows of my chest.

This interview first appeared in Canvas 114: Once Upon A Time