Aidha Badr

Primarily focusing on the early onset realization of what is referred to as a ‘loss’ of the object occurring during the early years of a woman’s life, Aidha Badr (b.1996) is a painter who uses memory as a medium while exploring theories of female desire, attachment, and object relations which compel women to an eternal life of desire and longing.

Aidha Badr’s work deals with universal experiences of femininity, childhood, and domestication and how women cope with emotional states and interpret affective information. Painting in an abstract timeline she works through her memories from the perspective of her childhood self, exploring parallels and unravelling her own childhood as she remembers it, as well as how it was told through stories and hearsay. 

Aidha Badr, by Elina Sairanen

In the eyes of a seven-year-old, her grandfather’s house in Alexandria is a treasure chest.

A wondrous space full of exciting details unfolding into endless possibilities that caress a child’s imagination: a green marble table becomes a car, ideal for playing a mechanic and lying underneath the table, repairing the vehicle and gently touching the bottom side of the cold heavy green marble slab; a tiny corner between an armchair and chiffon curtains, perfect for hide-and-seek. The most important, however, in these scenes, is a loving grandfather, who braids the young girl’s hair, buys her Haribo cherry gummies splitting each cherry in half and teaches her to count to ten in ten different languages, entertaining her in a manner strictly reserved for grandparents: ever-so-generous, kind and wholeheartedly allowing.

The year the seven-year-old girl spent in Alexandria, inextricably bound up with these memories, marks a starting point for the story of Aidha Badr’s, a Brooklyn-born and Cyprus-based visual artist, whose work explores memories, daydreaming and the intricacies of female desire.

Grief Is Love With Nowhere To Go, 2022

Continue reading

Aidha Badr received a BFA from Binghamton University, New York and is currently pursuing a MFA at Girne American University in Cyprus. In 2017, she was awarded the Novogrodsky Memorial Award for Artistic Pursuits, New York.

Her works were already shown in two solo exhibitions in Kuwait (2018, “As Above So Below”, Dar Al Funoon; 2017 “Fomo”, Artspace). She also participated in various group shows in New York (Spring Group Show, Rosefsky Gallery; First Friday Group Show, Cooperative Gallery 213) and Kuwait (“Abolish 135”). In 2022, Aidha Badr presented her third solo exhibition, 'When I Desire You A Part Of Me Is Gone’, with Hunna Art in Dubai.

In 2019, Aidha collaborated with Bloomingdales for the FW19 collection (Kuwait) and with Puma’s Spring Campaign Washed Ashore (Beirut).

CV

News

1 3