Naima White

Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, USA

Artist statement

As a woman of Iraqi Jewish heritage, my sense of self often falls between assumed incompatible identities. Because of this, I am driven to search for what connects two forms of expression, whether it is myth and reality, pop culture and tradition, or Middle Eastern and Western aesthetics. This way multiple subjective experiences of landscape, pattern, and identity interlace to form a narrative. Playing with focus and layers of imagery I endeavor to capture a collective memory. Each piece is a form of storytelling, manipulated into a dreamlike experience, the purpose of which is to link fractured viewpoints and create a new whole. By using the concept of the family archive as a way of expression, and questioning what holds meaning to an individual versus society, I choose to examine the personal significance of what objects mean, the mythology they create, and how they are preserved. Concepts of home, belonging, migration, and history are all examined through a postcolonial lens meant to disassemble both identity and culture established by standing economic powers to build up new forms that relate to a more nuanced experience.

Artwork