Artwork Deep Dive: Naziha Selim 'The Warmth of Tea and a Mother's Embrace'
Author
Nadine Nour el Din
Published
8 September 2022
In this untitled work from 1996, Naziha Selim (1927-2008) paints a vibrant scene that features four Iraqi women in an intimate gathering. Seated around a table, they are veiled, dressed in bright colourful clothes, and each draped in a dark abaya (a loose-fitting full-length robe), which suggests that they may not be in a private space. The protagonist of this painting is a reclining figure nursing her baby, her breast exposed. Her veil shields her from the view of the women who sit behind her, huddled closely.
Naziha Selim, ‘Untitled’, 1996, from His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Private Collection
Naziha Selim’s bold depiction of motherhood centres around a breastfeeding mother seen in the act of a sacred, nurturing practice that women are often confined to do in private. Though the act of providing milk for a child is important and encouraged for a healthy baby, the practice of breastfeeding in public is stigmatised. Here, the artist invites the viewer into her protagonist’s embrace, which would otherwise be a private moment. Her gaze directed towards her baby expresses a tender moment of bonding.
Selim celebrates the female body without shame, offering a significant depiction that serves to normalise the way breastfeeding is seen.
The subject of motherhood is one that Selim has explored throughout her practice, concerned with representing women, social themes, and Iraqi subjects.[1] This is perhaps most evident in her portrait of her mother painted in the 1960s. In it, her mother is pictured with the tools of her craft, holding a ball of yarn in one hand, and clutching her knitting needles in the other.
To the right of our protagonist, three women sit in close proximity. One appears melancholic, with a hand on her cheek, another appears attentive, holding her friend’s hand. The third is crouched down and appears to be whispering a secret into her companion’s ear. In this composition, the figures of each woman are interconnected, reflecting an aura of friendship and community. Selim’s work often depicts families, women, and spaces where women come together, painting Iraqi subjects in their traditional dress. Beneath each abaya, layers of colourful clothes appear, in bright turquoise, orange, red and yellow, the vibrant tones of which shine through the sheer, dark fabric. Our protagonist wears a golden anklet, which brings attention to another exposed area of her body. In these details, the artist brings into question what is concealed and what is revealed.
Tea is served in a bright teapot, which rendered in the same turquoise as the mother’s dress, echoes the warmth of her embrace. A recurring theme in art and life, Selim’s student Faisal Laibi Sahi recalls memories of drinking karak chai (tea with cardamom) with the artist when he frequented her home.[2]
Naziha Selim’s women are stylised and expressive, rendered in broad brushstrokes and painterly precision. Geometric shapes and deconstructed patterns frame her compositions. A founding member of the Baghdad Modern Art Group, throughout her practice the artist experimented with compositions and figuration, abstracting characters, and articulating forms through shapes in a search for her own visual language to express a modernism that embodied a distinctive ‘Iraqi spirit’.[3]
[1] Naziha Selim, ‘Meet the Artist’, Al Aqlam, 6 (June 1965), 79-84.
[2] Myrna Ayad, ‘Remembering Naziha Selim: one of the few female pioneers in Iraqi art’, The National (20 September 2021, accessed August 30 2022, https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/art/2021/10/03/remembering-naziha-selim-one-few-female-pioneers-in-modern-iraqi-art/)
[3] Nada Shabout, ‘A Dream We Call Baghdad’, in Zainab Bahrani and Nada Shabout, Modernism and Iraq (New York: Wallach Art Gallery and Columbia University, 2009)
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