Bullet #9 2014

Lalla Essaydi built this photograph “Bullet #9” with bodies, fabric, and bullet casings. Imagine the artist working in the studio, arranging, shifting, and draping her figures in this opulent, meditative tableau. Essaydi’s photographic practice makes me think about the history of painting, about artists like Matisse who used decorative patterning and the female form as a way of flattening perspective and challenging Western painting conventions. The repetition of the bullet casings here has a similar effect, merging the sitters and their environment into a glittering surface. I start to think about what it would be like to work with such politically charged materials, and how the artist might have felt as she built this image. It’s like she’s saying something about constraint and freedom, violence and beauty. There’s a dialogue between ornamentation and destruction, and in a broader sense, Essaydi is challenging a Western view of Islamic culture. Her photographs remind us that all artists are in conversation with one another, inspiring each other’s creative work.