Born in 1958, Lalla Essaydi grew up in Morocco, and received her MFA in 2003 from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Tufts University. Essaydi's art crosses many genres, including photography, performance, painting, video, and film installation. Her work has been exhibited in many major U.S. cities, including Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Buffalo, New York, as well as European countries, including Syria, Ireland, England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland. Her work is represented in a number of major collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Houston, among others. Her art, which often combines Islamic calligraphy with representations of the female body, addresses the complex reality of Arab female identity from the unique perspective of personal experience. She often appropriate Orientalist imagery from the Western painting tradition, thereby inviting viewers to reconsider the Orientalist mythology. Her work is represented by Schneider Gallery in Chicago; Howard Yezerski Gallery in Boston; and Edwynn Houk Gallery in New York. She lives in New York.