Laila Muraywid

“My work questions the programmed social reactions facing taboos. It explores the relationship of: oneself to others; illusion and desire; cultural fears and anxieties repressed in the complexities and paradoxes of social conventions. The sphere of intimacy is a starting point that allows the passage of the singular to the universal. The woman’s body is taken hostage in the trap of religion, politics and society,” writes Syrian artist Laila Muraywid.

Born in Damascus, Laila Muraywid (1956) graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Damascus University, and continued her higher education at the École Nationale Supérieure Des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Muraywid creates sculptures, jewellery and photography, articulating themes of female marginality, fragility, desire, freedom, objectification and even violence.

Laila Muraywid’s work is in the collections of the British Museum, London; Galliera Museum, Paris; Institut du monde Arabe, Paris; Al Mansouria Foundation, Jeddah; the Jordan National Museum of Fine Arts; Khalid Shoman Foundation, Amman; Dalloul Art Foundation, Beirut and the Musée Caudresien des Dentelles et Broderies as well as in private collections around the world.