Halimatu Iddrisu
Halimatu Iddrisu (born 1997) is a Ghanaian artist who received her BFA in Painting from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in 2020. She currently lives and works in Kumasi, Ghana. Iddrisu’s work often features Islamic cultural ornamentation of women such as the hijab, lele, and henna. Her work is driven by a desire to subvert the cultural perspectives in which these ornamentations may present the female body. Iddrisu uses drawing as an outlet to make commentaries on these cultural connotations and perceptions that she is interrogating. She sources image references for her drawings through photography. Iddrisu superimposes the female body provocatively on materials that denote sacredness, privacy, and masculinity using dye, pastel, chalk, paint, lele, and henna as media to present the female body in an empowered light. The see-through nature of the materials and media she uses makes some of her works appear multi-layered with texts, patterns and drawings. Due to the translucent nature of the fabrics she uses, she allows external conditions like natural light, rain, breeze, dust etc. to intervene in her works. Iddrisu has participated in Exposure (2021), a collaborative exhibition project between herself and Gidisu Gershon and curated by Isaac Ato Jackson. The first iteration of the project made use of the open grounds in front of the Centre for Cultural and African Studies on KNUST campus, Kumasi. The show stayed up there for a week and then moved to The Royal Parade grounds also on KNUST campus for another week.
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