​​​The Body, the Veil and the Muslim Woman

Faceless forms of women moulded by the outlines of their garments. Halimatu Iddrisu, the artist who paints them to life, strips you of the power of individual referencing. The parts of their bodies that are depicted to be unclad are transparent. Iddrisu is insistent on concealing what the absence of clothes can say about the skin. Like their bodies, their heads are shaped by what covers or adorns them: turbans, headscarves, hijabs, natural hair, weaves or braids.

Some of Iddrisu’s paintings bear solitary figures. Like the woman wearing a hijab and outfits in different shades of blue who sits folding her legs inwards—this is the face of Shrouded Mysteries, the exhibited collection at Nubuke Foundation that marks my first encounter with Iddrisu’s art. In others, women stand (or sit) together as sisters of one faith, with and without head coverings. These elements come together to convey the one thing Iddrisu wants you to know and how she wants you to identify her subjects: Muslim women navigating the complexities of faith.

Iddrisu’s work holds her autobiography as a Muslim woman in Ghana. It encompasses her encounters with other Muslim women in the communities she has lived in and the various ways they choose to dress. It is especially the manifestation of how she navigates the conservative restrictions Islam places on her artistic techniques to show the various facets of appearances that Muslim women embrace.